Dr J I did not say that the artist lacked craft and skill, more that the pice itself appears to lack it. If you were to present this as an unknown, or young, artist you would be told to come back later when you had learned to paint. Being slightly more charitable, as I said in another comment, that it looks like a rushed or preparatory work. You can see where the work has almost certainly been done in one go, with little over painting and it is very expressive, but as we know the source material the idea looks half baked.

That is only my opinion and the fact that we are discussing this adds a bit of weight to the fact that it is a worthwhile work of art, but I still cannot escape the feeling that it was just chucked at the side of the studio with a casual “Yep. That will do.” If that was the result of anything I made then I wuold probably concentrate on the day job a bit more 😉

What bothers me most about this form of abstract art is the lack of craft and technique behind it.

All abstract art?, would you include the works of Jackson Pollock?

Definitely not Jackson Pollock. His work was interesting because although it looked random there was an systematic order in which he painted that gave his work a style and structure. This work looks more like a thought sketch for a work that was to be completed later, especially as we know the source material.

What bothers me most about this form of abstract art is the lack of craft and technique behind it. I know when I create something there is a piece of me in it and the ideas that I am trying to express, but to do it with what appears to be a complete absence of skill would degrade me as an artist. I would feel like I am taking the piss out of anybody buying it, but that may be more a reflection of who I am rather than the work of art Itself. Art is massively personal so I can only look at it that way both as a consumer and a producer.

Each to their own, I guess, and the main point here is that it is no longer about the art more as an object of monetary value far beyond the original artist’s intention. The bit that grates the most is the people with very little talent or appreciation talking such utter codswallop about any of these sorts of pieces. I am sure that they believe what they say, but I they do come across in the most pompous way that makes it less likely that I would try and understand it and tend towards the “It’s a bit shit” line of thinking.

Kind pretty much nailed it, but I would add that you need to be able to get on with the teacher. I find that some teachers give you the excercise and you get on with, not realising that you are recruiting h wrong muscle groups, or the alignment means that you are not getting the intended benefit. I would not trust any class where the teacher is not correcting, or assisting by moving people around a bit. I know if I have tight hip flexors, or have a niggle, it will be spotted, even though Io think I may be doing fine.

I would try and get some recommendations for classes that fit you and try them out. Personally, from what you describe, I would try some classical mat Pilates with a small class and take it from there.

My entry at the local WI show won best in show. It was an entry of three carved spoons and it beat all of their scones, jams, Victoria sponges and the like. I actually laughed when I wen to to collect them at the end of the show. It even came with a prize of £25. Still makes me giggle today 🙂

The classification of others (everyone apart from you and your tribe) is not an inherently bad thing. It turns nasty when you make those others less than you just for being others. When you make them less than you start treating them differently and that is the nub of most of these arguments.

So in answer to your question it is not wrong to characterise, but once you do it very rarely means that you put them on a par with your normal, so can quickly become negative.

To be honest the best we can all hope for is to check any of our own stereotyping and apologise if we get it wrong.

Current favourite are these Arborwear

They are very comfortable and are lasting really well. They don’t look like you are on a building site as well so you can wear them in an office as well. Not exactly cheap though.

Simon, I love that. I have been logging data for years and what I have been looking for is a change in the pattern. I know when I have a virus/infection as I have a heart rate that is too high for the effort I am doing, or I just cannot push through to the maximum I know I can do. That way I back off a bit and go slower and enjoy the scenery rather than blowing out of my arse at every opportunity.

BTW I am 48, 75Kg, rest 55 and max 205.

Data geek and proud 🙂

Pretty much the whole of the Pilates repertoire:

Curl up, reverse curl up, teaser (1,2,3 &4), criss cross, scissors, hundred, boomerang and lots of other names you will probably not heard of. The dragon flag above is done in pilates as well (Jackknife) but you use your arms in a low V on the floor. Best bet is to go to a class to find out how to do some of this and once you know the moves you can do it wherever you want. Alternatively there is YouTube, but that will not correct your little cheats that make some of the harder exercises easier and make you work the core harder.

The trick is to make sure that you exercise all off the core, including all of the obliques to enable you to stabilise the whole body.

No irrational dislikes, just a big bit dislike for what TREK did to Lemond. They kowtowed to Armstrong and did not back the brand, in fact they actively did not distribute it. It was not a business decision it was a political one that they have now had to do a lot of back tracking.

I have just copied the response Chris put on his site saying thanks for all the positive responses. Anybody thinking that it is “All about me” should read the last paragraph. He knows he just goes on about things (that is part of the Aspergers) and why it is shown.
——————————–
Thank you.

The response has been both phenomenal and overwhelming. I wish I had the time to answer each and every tweet and posting but it’s Autumnwatch season so please accept this message as that personal reply.

I think that if you have been afforded a voice, however small, then you should use it to instigate positive change. It’s not an option – it’s a duty, and to forfeit that duty, to keep life easy, to not rock the boat, to play safe, is simply unforgivable, immoral, untenable. Thus I really didn’t have a choice but to speak up about autism, for autistic people.

Talking frankly about the negative aspects, past and present, was not as difficult as many imagine. It’s what I, we, do. We like and need the truth and we don’t shy away from saying it. Sometimes this gets us into trouble, personally . . . and professionally. But for this unique opportunity to work, to open my world to others so they could try to see, hear, smell and feel it, absolute honesty was obligatory. Some of it hurt, revisiting the grave of my Kestrel wasn’t easy, it opened doors that I try to keep shut, but to fully expose the gravity of that love, its loss and its lifelong impact . . . Well, many, many people have kindly voiced their respect for this honesty – thank you.

What was more difficult was positioning myself to represent the autistic community. Because it’s impossible. I am not a typical autistic person – because there isn’t a typical autistic person. Amongst this community I am probably in a better position than others, those with more extreme or debilitating aspects of the condition. Whilst we may share traits, we have very different needs so I wanted to be clear and candid about this too. The acceptance of this sensitive dilemma by healthcare professionals and the autistic tribe was very reassuring – thank you.

What I also needed to display was our vulnerability. Not just my own, but that of most autistic people and their families. When things get dark we get desperate for solutions and interventions that have not yet been clinically proven to work, are obviously there and may be tempting. Understandably there are enormous pressures to try and fix things and trying to somehow ‘normalise’ ourselves or get ‘normalised’ can seem like the best solution. From my personal perspective I think this is wrong, and that at this point in time it’s impossible. Of course there are therapies that can help – but none that can cure autism. And that was the big question I chose to ask myself and the world . . . if we could, should we ‘cure’ autism.

(It won’t surprise you know that I have absolutely no time at all for hypothetical questions, but for the purpose of stimulating debate we tabled this one.) Postulating such a solution produced some shocking results and an important concluding message . . . No. Emphatically – no.

And that’s the message that I wanted to land to parents, friends, colleagues and a large number of isolated, unhappy, confused children, teenagers and adults. We don’t need a cure, there is nothing wrong with us – we are different. And that difference has enormous biological and social importance. Many of us have skills to invent solutions, produce art and science to benefit all and to receive these gifts all we need in return is understanding, tolerance and acceptance. For all autistic people it mustn’t any longer be about what we can’t do, it’s got to be about what we can do. And it appears from your thousands of responses that I hit the mark – thank you. Thank you a lot.

Now, one last and very important thing. The above is all me and I. And I don’t like that because it’s not all about me at all. This programme was made by Charlie Russell and he is brilliant. It was produced by Lizzie Kempton, equally superb. RAW TV did a great job and none of it would have happened without the vision and faith of Tom MacDonald and Abigail Priddle at the BBC. These people deserve more praise than I do . . . all I did was go on, and on, and on about birds, battles, art, cars . . . more birds . . . aeroplanes . . . books . . .

Chris

PS I’m very pleased to now be acting as a patron for the National Autistic Society.

PPS Scratchy is well. His treatment for liver disease is working.

PPPS Megan has yet to graduate. I have taken on board your comments and the University of Liverpool are trying to tempt me with poodles and pangolins. But . . . it’s just a piece of paper . . .

Cake is fine, just ride a bit more 😉

We are currently in the middle of setting up a charity mostly based on being outside doing something productive to help all sorts of mental health issues. I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that some of this is actually self medication. Just being outside doing anything seems to help a lot and it may also help if there are others around doing the same thing as you. This, for me, is often bike riding, but I have found that there are a lot of people who like learning new skills, some of which we may be able to turn in to some productive use. Surprisingly enough one of those things turned out to be spoon carving, which I now teach. I just used to do it when sitting around a camp fire, but loads of people love it. Who knew?

Anyway if anybody is interested I have copied the link below ( definitely not an advert as we are still setting up, more as info if anybody who feels it may help and live near Winchester drop me a line on here or dm if you are interested).

One Acorn[/url]

I call it cycle therapy. The chance of exercise, company, the ability to both talk about all sorts of rubbish, or just be silent and enjoy being out with others is a combination that makes for your health. I am down in Winchester if you ever fancy a bit of South Downs action.

Well done on starting this as well. As a community this place can be amazing some times when the keyboard warriors take a back seat and you get genuine offers of help. Long may it continue.

I have referbished a few of these and there are a few things to check;

1 Is the gushing coming from the portafilter? If so then the threads may have go gunked up and you will need to clear that out. I use a brass brush (what I used to find in my parents shoe cleaning box as a suede brush). You may not be able to pull the basket around as far as you used to and this will be why.

2 Use a proper descaled to clean out the pipes.

3 The solenoid that switches between the steam and the head can be a weak link, but you can buy them at much reduced cost from a non coffee shop as they are a standard electrical part.

They are really simple machines and I like that you can just keep them going.

If you need any more help then just pm me (in profile)

Cheers

Andy

I use the Granfors Bruks exclusively for my own splitting duties. It is a beautifully made and balanced bit of kit. I also like the built in guard below the head which is keeping the handle in very good condition. I also like the Fiskars axes as they are well made and have a consistent shape to split most wood when teaching kids on our camps to chop wood (whole other topic that one).

The pattern on the Husky can be a bit more interesting to use in wood that has a less than straight grain, but 90% of the tie it is excellent.

Whatever you do don’t go for the maul and it is not the right tool for the job. All other suggestions would be better. (my twopenneth)

Agree with most of the above apart from the meritocracy argument. This is flawed by the fact that I have had this conversation with some very able women in male dominated fields. You don’t just have to be as good as the men to be equal, you have to be better to get the same opportunities. That is not a meritocracy.

Arco do some of these :

Waterproof handling gloves.

I have used them and they are not massively warm, but definitely waterproof. At £4 they may be worth a punt.

We have a track that we named “Double D”. Not because of the topography, but because for a while bras were hung from the branches of the overhanging trees. I never realised that flying model aeroplanes was used as code for something else 😉

Details…………

I have an original Turner Burner which is a small that I bought for my wife. I now use it as my alps bike as it owes me nothing and I love the way it handles some of the big stuff. They are still out there and it may be worth a punt on the wanted page to see if you can get a few out of the woodwork. Meanwhile my son is now nicking my bike so I will be building up another old Turner Flux as his next bike 🙂

Cant live wit I.T. Can’t live without I.T.

Another Muddy Fox Courier in bright yellow in 1987. It was second hand and I brought it off a truck driver, though why he had it I have no idea.

That was the first real MTB, but before that I used to chuck an old Coventry eagle bike with those steel rod brakes (leather brake blocks!) around the local berms and jumps we made, until the head tube departed from he rest of the frame leaving me in a very odd chopper pose sliding down the road in a shower of sparks.

The problem (actually not really a problem) is that the lone attack way out has failed every time. The tempo that is going on at the head of the peloton is so high that the slow war of attrition wins in the end. If the team at the front (AG2R or Sky, even SunWeb) want to control it they can, full in the knowledge that the guys that they are riding for get the protection and then can try and when the rest of the guys have been dropped with such a high pace.

Some of this is also a product of the cleaner racing as they all know that such monster efforts cannot be sustained. It might appear boring, but it has been so tense to see how everybody fares in the final showdown. As Dan Martin said: “It will be down to who has the least worse day on the tour.” I do like Dan Martin and wonder how he would have got on with a team working just for him, but with Kittel on the squad that was never going to happen.

As for tomorrow it is another 222km so it will be monstrously hard day for everybody after today and who knows if anybody will have the energy to try something?

Edit to make some sense.

Billhooks

Woodland Craft Supplies is the name of the company in Peterborough.

These guys are great and have some really good quality tools.

Yes, but your job as a bloke with regards to feminism is to get out of the way and help if required. I am SWP, but know enough to check myself before saying stuff and seeing if I would feel ok if it was said about me.

Jimjam you rewrote my reply far more succinctly.

This wins the prize for the most backward thread of the day. The amount of sexism and anti disability content is surprising.

Sport is about competing against others and yourself. If you enjoy watching it then great, but nobody forced you to. Women’s sport is just as competitive as the mens equivalent. Expecting them to be at the same physical level is just wrong as the women are not competing against the men. Just because you don’t like it does not mean that it should not exist, or is a waste of time.

BTW any comment about a woman’s tampon during a sporting event is right out of order. If men had to put up with bleeding every month out of their penis you are damn sure we would all know about it. Instead they get on with it and try and put in your best performance despite having a hormonal imbalance and losing a key part of their oxygen supply mechanism.

Watching this thread with interest as there are several comments that the writers are making unchecked assumptions (I know this is the internet so most of them are, but it is worth a punt at pointing them out).

The first is that mental health = stress (and work induced stress as well). Take a moment to think about all of the possible mental health issues and then you are assuming that it is work related stress and the negative connotation of that is that the person cannot do their job. A lot of conditions need active management and this may mean time off work. If you make any assumptions without knowing the details then you could be part of the problem.

The second is that there is a very large prejudice against anybody with any mental health issue. If you do not treat it as an illness that needs treatment, rather than the “put up and shut up” attitude of a lot of workplaces means that people can end up in very deep trouble. The open attitude may look odd, but if a team and employer have made a culture that a person is comfortable enough to do this then good on them(even if it may look a bit odd to the outside). The fact that you cannot see that this is what may be happening means that you are not aware that it may be an option for employers. In the long run this attitude will lead to better productivity as the illness is treated early and understood, rather than having people off for months with mental health issues. It may actually be good financial practice to do this.

From most of their products they can be lector right handed. I am not ware of any unisex models, but could let me know which model you are on about.

(sorry to drag the thread back on track 🙂 )

Her blog is the best and most insightful thing on the website. I can’t wait to listen to some of the commentary with such a wealth of knowledge. it was her and Greg Lemond that got me in to cycling and so much so that I bought and ex team Z bike in the red blue and yellow colours so that I could pretend to be Robert Millar.

You can get that creak from the rear axle, or cassette bearings. Pretty quick to check as well. I have had the same issue and it turned out that a bit of grease on the rear axle before tightening sorted it.

I have not got any images of mine that link on here, but i have this Lemond ex-team bike. It is Columbus EL framed lightweight frame built for the mountain stages. It is pretty much original apart from the gears which I put new Record C brake leaver/gear change on instead of the downtime shifters, but I still have them. I love this bike and it is still my favourite bike to ride and that paint job is awesome. 😀

Jim, there is some awesome fishing in rivers like the Teme. Some have day tickets, but there is quite a bit if you know where to look. My folks live round there so I will ask to see if there any recommendations.

Flashy, yes it is a dribble but a 2 lb greying and a the same for a wild brownie was not a bad outcome for 1/2 an hour on a little mayfly this afternoon.

Lucky enough to have the River Itchen at the bottom of the garden, so can fly fish to my heart’s content. However I grew up in the black country and learnt to fish on the cut (canal for non-yamyams). I even used to practice on the road outside our house, which must have looked weird. If you are near Winchester then I can offer a try out on the river, but it is probably much better to start on a still water and get a lesson.

At the moment it is duffer’s fortnight with a massive mayfly hatch so the fish are jumping round like loonies. It still takes a bit of skill to catch them, but once you have some of the basics then you are away. I actually like the fly tying as much as the fishing as I have a look during the day and tie a fly to match those on the river. I think it is as much about learning about the river as it is about the fish.

Waves from Twyford. If you want any company let me know as I am off all week and am getting out when I am not working on the tree/sculpture in the middle of the village (by the village hall if you see lots of tools and possibly the scaffold) Not saying that I will keep up on the hills all the time though 😉

First thing first: keeping warm is easy with more layers and a blanket or two. Depending on you normal routine they may be in grow bags anyway and another layer inside there will be toasty.

As for keeeping them in one place you can go low tech or expensive. Low tech is a couple of bags round them in a corner. Assuming they are not mountaineering yet that will do. Otherwise you can get a small pop up type of see through cot/ tent affair that packs down and keeps them in place.

For reference we camped with 3 month old in march in the U.K. And they were great. We camp with the kids about 6 weeks a year (possibly more) all over the world and the worst situation was in oz. My son was not in the pop up tent in the tent yet as he was immobile so stayed where he was put. That was until we got to the Northern Territory and decided to make is escape in to the bush by crawling out of the tent! Zips were then done up high for the rest of the trip and he did not get far.

In short go for it. They develop so much being in new environments and seem to sleep better in the cold air outside, but so do I

Just for info the raw clean water is the lowest cost element of any water bill. The actual cost, in terms of licence is way under £0.01 per cubic meter. The vast majority of the cost is the power to pump the water to you and to take it away to the treatment plant. That is part of the reason that power companies own the majority of the water companies.

By way of contrast people pay stupid amounts for a plastic bottle of water that is in no real way different from that coming out of the tap, but nobody complains about that.

Sorry, but that was full of technical inaccuracies and some footage of stuff that was not where they said it was. This place is where I work and play. I spend a great deal of my time in the places that he was spouting tosh about and there are far better stories to be told than those they glossed over here.

The photography was great, but they obviously were limited on their filming days. The stories that can be told are limited but so few days in the field. That was a collection of a few days out at specific sites strung together with some shots without the presenter showing the Downs with varying degrees of success.

I suppose I am disappointed by such a lacklustre production of such an amazing place. There was also no reality check on the pressures on the environment and the amount of effort that goes in to protecting, managing and putting right some of the practices that have destroyed much of the downland’s fragile ecosystem. For example the spread of the otter population is as much down to the decrease in persecution as it is to anything else. I have been lucky enough to see otters, see spawning salmon in winter streams, found out how the whole downland ecosystem is linked. It is a very rare type of habitat and this barely scratched the surface. As mentioned by brooess Mint captures the essence of the Downs far better than that hour did. Jo captures the small things that change on the downs very well indeed.

Definitely a sense of a missed opportunity.

Guilty as charged Mr K (I think from a bit of we stalking). Actually that stat about the closure rate for the design life is now the big issue. I can’t quite remember the exact numbers but it was something like the barrier was closed more is the winter of 2013/14 than it was envisaged it would close in the 25 year design life.

Brooess – the groundwater levels are not high at all at the moment. In fact some of the water companies were looking t drought issues for next summer if we continued to have the prolonged lack of rain in the South East. Hopefully we have now had normal service being resumed and the aquifers fill up again, as a lot of places rely on water storage in the ground rather than reservoirs. It will take a few months to get back to the situation of 2013/14 and there is no way you would every get me saying it will not happen.

As for the operation of the barrier during flood events, as somebody said earlier, you can operate it so that you shut it at low tide during a flood event and have a very substantial amount of storage in the river itself. The maximum flow up at Windsor was around 400 meters cubed a second (400,000 litres) so you can work out how much will back up in the reach above the barrier. The surveys that we have allow us to estimate the volumes coming in and the time of the tides so we know when to close the barrier and still allow the water to be stored in the river during that time and not flood London.

On a side issue there is already work underway to replace the barrier (next 20 years) and the levels that we have to protect against will be considerably higher than the design heights at the moment. As Pictonroad said it involves much more than just the barrier across the Thames. All of the estuary gates and infrastructure has to be raised as well so it is a very large undertaking. It is still a very cool bit of engineering though and I love going under there occasionally.