Boss walks past us down the office to his ‘in crowd’ he lunches with and gives them info in a very quiet voice. Then walks back past the rest of us, telling us nothing so that when we get phone calls and questions we don’t know what the present status of our systems are.

Its mostly women he ignores or other people he thinks also have low status.

Do an ‘advanced’ forum search for 1 year back – loads of discussions were on here then.

Assorted guidance and useful info:

http://www.peterwhitecycles.com/studdedtires.asp

http://www.icebike.org/

http://www.snowbikers.com/snow_tyre.html

http://www.schwalbetires.com/new_spike_tires_home

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2010/jan/06/tips-cycling-in-snow

Bit sad he seems only to comment on selling to men… I thought getting away from traditional bike shops would mean getting away from prejudice.

Before donating you would need to come to an agreement about the child knowning who you were and at what age. Also to trust them to hold to that agreement.

More importantly, I think unless you go via a government registered fertitlity agency ie a fully legal procedure, you remain responsible for child support no matter what the informal or written arrangement with the mother was. It will be out of her hands and into the dreaded Child Support Agency.

So, not good for you if it turns out to be twins who want to go on to higher education… 20 years or so of double support payments. This sounds a joke, but its a serious consideration. If you end up having to pay child support you might find that your and your own future partner not only struggle to buy a house etc but cant afford to have any children of your own as a couple.

Remember how ruthless formerly decent people get over money in wills? It will be nothing in comparison to how they fight to 'get the best' for their child – if that means ruining you and your future to help their child, chances are they will take the money and run, as they will love the child more than they love you as a friend.

I dont understand why people lie by omission to thier kids over stuff that is comparatively harmless if told, but distressing to the kids later if its been withheld. If you grow up with knowledge it is just information, not some dread scary thing revealed to you like it was evil.

A carefully discussed issue can be positive. In my family a young girl found out in very distressing circumstances that her grandfather killed her grandmother then committed suicide. It was something that had been 'covered up' for years. As a result she was very distressed. The correct alternative would have been to tell her about it in a calm setting, explaining about shell shock from wars and about mental health issues and that the situation was sad, but these things happen.

But instead, once the truth was accidentally out, the girl was told by her mother that she had to give her word she would never tell her brother the truth about the grandparents. She was only about 12. She was left distressed, compromised and used. The way the adults around her behaved was despicable, all because they had been taught to fear the (sad but totally harmless) truth.

Give pause for though about the consequences of secrets and of what your kids might be put through later, when they find out your lies. Why break their trust in you over silly things like divorces and illegitimate kids?
Why hurt them to save yourself some minor discomfort?

I bought one. Liked it so much went back and got another colour too. Bought one for a friend and last winter it was here favorite outdoor wear.

No problem with length, in fact in the cold longer is better. Lots less problems with smells. Recommended.

I did hear a rumour they are trying to do marino ones with printed patterns on but I cant see any on the net. They do a range for pet dogs though 🙂

I bought a snow shovel last week. They were front centre display in the main window of the citys ironmongers!

Worth checking again in a few days to see what else has been put up!

He seems to have hired a lot of lawyers and suchlike in the last few weeks, if web news is correct. I am wondering if he hired a public relations firm as well…

Like I said, why not put your name on work you are proud of?

Contact Wiggle Customer Services – when I had postal problems in the past they could not have been more helpful and constructive.

I use a Vodaphone one and its been good where I live. Signal speed can very a lot though when travelling.

Not as good as a wired in line as its slower, signal can drop sometimes, reception varies from place to place. Having said that, I really like mine and like the idea I can use it anywhere I am able to obtain a signal. I find it plenty fast enough for normal info searching – looking stuff up, mail, singletrack etc. I never bother with videos though as it would use up too much of the monthly allowance.

I would say give it a try. Even borrow one from someone who is near where you live now, just so you can see how it works and its possible speed. If you dont like it at all, dont get one when you move.

I think they are good though on the whole.

I would take it back and change it, or if you can be bothered try a new battery in it.

I have 2 of these watches – one is consistant and stable, the other throws a wobble maybe once every 3 months, then is ok for ages. You are right about the randomness of its quirks though.

The one that is stable is very handy as its the most comfortable watch to wear I have ever had.

Interesting comment on the twitchy ride. Does it relate to wheel size or overall bike design? The Escape mini is 20" wheels so if its about wheel size, how difficult are the 16" (Mezzo, Brompton, some Dahons) to ride?

I dont find my Escape mini 1 twitchy to steer and I have reduced the stem length by about an inch. I do have a 700c that is very nervy though, which is puzzling.

I like the photo of the Hammerhead and its unusual environment.

They must have sold quite a few Escapes as several shops seemed to stock them.

Anyone else seen any of the Escape Minis about?

As info on these seems so infrequent I will (rather belatedly) post these comments from other sites, as I found these looking for additional info for myself – trying to find other people who own them and wondering how they got on. So far I have only seen one other of these bikes on the street so they are not very common, at least in my area.

http://www.cyclechat.net/topic/30040-giant-escape-mini-1/

http://www.bikeradar.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=16275722

Specs at
http://www.giant-bicycles.com/en-GB/bikes/lifestyle/347/32867/

http://www.giant-bicycles.com/en-GB/bikes/lifestyle/347/32866/

Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

I don't usually give up on books but I was gone by the first 20 pages. I have been told it improves a lot after the first 100 pages, but I am never going to find that out personally, too many interesting things to do.

Thats a really sweet picture. Your hound looks a character!

I think Pedalabike away is being sold.

I saw the owners advert to sell the business in Cycling Weekly a few weeks back. It said the business had been there 20 years.

Very good of you to do this.

– A list/map of bike friendly cafes and pubs would also be handy
– perhaps locations of bike shops for those needing unexpected spares!

Bit of a horror story re poor management in the Daily Mail – enough to scare anyone into more careful care of themselves I should think.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1309609/The-cruel-cost-ignoring-diabetes-Jane-lost-arm-legs-disease-like-didnt-seriously.html

Main hobbies throughout my life, both as adult and child have been reading, cycling, photography.

Sometimes I don't do one or other of these for a few days. Sometimes its been 3 or 4 years of not engaging with some of them. I used to worry about loss of interest but I don't any more. I just keep the kit and when I am ready, start using it again. The 'worry' was more of an issue than the actual need to 'step away' for a bit. Sometimes, your brain just needs to use the time and space for a different or new interest.

At the moment, I have not biked with any real interest for over a year. Partly becasue a series of unhappy social events occurred which my brain relates to cycling, so attempts to recall if I go biking. I have also stopped biking to work due to the large number of bike thefts from our company and area and the disinterest our (pro cycling!) employer shows in this.

One of my bikes is 20+ years old, so it is used to my phases. I have a lot of happy memories with it and will have again. I would not dream of getting rid of it or any of the others.

Stop worrying. Do something new for a bit instead, until your brain is looking for its bikes again 🙂

Putting a tiny smear of grease around the seals/joins of the casings can be very helpful with most lights. I always do it from new. Keep it away from the electrical contacts though.

Happy for his church and congregation to pay for the visit and policing. I expect he is coming over to meet all the abused kids they have been calling liars so frequently over the years, or to give a promotion to some of the abusers.

Not happy for tax payers money to be spent on his visit, or the Olympics and suchlike when the country is broke and the same millions of pounds could be spent on health care or on not cutting back on important services. 12 million is a lot of heating for pensioners this year, if they cant think of anything to spend it on.

Still why would the Pope be concerned about health care when he is so keen for millions to die of AIDS – so he can feel secure his own belief that he will end up in heaven?

Me. I hate the vile tasting low fat stuff. When I was a child they used to sell the skimmed stuff cheap to pig farmers as 'waste product' to feed to the pigs as it was considered not viable to sell for humans to eat.

I did used to 'grow my own' milk at one time, when I used to farm goats. Not skimmed milk either 🙂

Yadda, yadda, yadda

Which seems to me an incredibly rude comment to add to any conversation. Very superior, as least in the speakers mind!

"yeh,yeh,yeh"

Most public libraries will have language learning cds or will order them in for you. Way cheaper then buying them, plus you help your local library by using it.

Take them home, MP3 them but dont mention that bit to the librarian or it will put them in an awkward position legally! Great place for audio books for car journeys etc too.

Blair will get plenty from this book, including indirect money.

His ego will be fed. His face will be saved.

By 'donating' to the British Legion, loads of people who would otherwise have protested by NOT buying this book will now feel it is 'patriotic' to the troops to do so. Most will not make a direct donation to the charity instead, as they will want something solid in return for their money and they no longer have to feel guilty about curiosity.

I cant see Tony coping ego wise with selling less books than Mandelson. Problem now solved!

The publicity over his donation has given him more TV and Newspaper time than he could possibly have got otherwise. More ego fulfillment plus the image of a generous hero and man of the people.

The more publicity he gets the more people will pay him for talks, dinner speeches etc when surely by now this source of money must have been drying up. He has done nothing interesting or useful at all other than line his pockets on the back of a load of peoples deaths and shamed the UK in the process.

He has supposedly just paid £1 million in cash for a little 1st house for his daughter. Can you do this? I think he can afford to loose the odd 4 million or so balanced against his property empire, his new banking venture and the additional revenue obtained indirectly from the book.

All round he cant possibly loose by 'giving stuff away' – money and ego fulfillment both on a plate plus another stab at securing a more positive 'legacy'.

""am i weird coz most women talk about handbags, shoes and babies and like to go shopping"

Its lonely at times isn't it?

I have no interest in handbags, hate buying shoes and know nothing about children and with some women (certainly not all of them I hasten to add) anything outside of these narrow subjects means the conversation is dead in its tracks 🙁

Worse, I have found certain types of women are resentful or scared in some odd way of other women who show interest in anything mechanical or physically active, other than weightlifting handbags! 🙂

Thankfully though there are some interesting and supportive women around and loads of men who are generous with encouragement and advice on things mechanical when you are learning. I have received much less prejudice and loads more support from men, who genuinely seem pleased to share knowledge and encourage beginner mechanics. The people of the Singletrack forum have been great on this too.

There used to be a lady on here who did her own motorbike repairs and loved it and I remember her saying she got bored when she had no mechanical stuff to do.

I do some of the servicing on my cars and all the servicing on my bicycles. I also do a lot of DIY in the house. Thanks to the encouragement of a male friend I bought a bike frame a few years back and all the bits and assembled it entirely by myself. It was hugely confidence building (I was struggling with depression at the time), as well as both interesting and terrifying to research and order all the bits. Sadly we fell out in the end over a pair of string strapped platform shoes with cleats set in the bottom – I said only an idiot would wear them or perceive them as anything but a joke, he wanted his girlfriend to wear such things! I had thought better of him 🙂

Anyway, your wife is not weird, she is brave. There is a lot of social pressure on little girls and adult women to be vacuous, vain, pretty and mechanically useless as it does not fit with what some people see as 'feminine'. They are wrong, we are right! 🙂

Tell her to have a go at her own mechanics/assembly – its fun! And get her to post on here as its always nice to get replies from women as well as guys.

I can now add pork pies and Baxters Mushroom Potage (mushroom soup) to this slightly old post! The cat will go nuts with interest as soon as the soup is opened.

Well he's not the most techie of people. It was all find until Hotmail apparently upgraded at their end. I wondered if it clashed with something. I might ask him later what version of IE he is using. Maybe its some outdated thing Hotmail cant work with. I don't think he is getting any error messages, just none of the mail will open although he can see the in box listing and new mail is still coming in. I don't know what he uses for security (home machine). I will try to find out more later today.

They have tried IE and Firefox. No go with either.

I am surprised the owners did not cover the above issues, its a bit poor they didn't.

They should also have left you the contact name and address of the local vet they use. If they have not, I suggest you track one down and keep a note of the vets day and night time numbers just in case something unexpected/major happens to the cat. Nothing worse than having to tell someone thier pet died as you could not get it to a vet in time…

Acer Aspire One – now have 2 of these in the house. Very happy with the first one, so went out of my way to get WinXP on the 2nd as I knew all my older programs and the netbook itself would all run fine.

I think Win 7 has some limitations that XP does not – like running additional screens off the netbook. There used to be a list of the differences and limitations on the web but I cant remember where it was now. Might be worth searching for a comparison page.

For a story about going unprepaired try

A Bike Ride: 12,000 Miles Around the World
Ann Mustoe, 1992

Head of an upmarket private girls school, retires, buys a bike, starts a series of very long rides. In this volume, its her first ever ride. Starts off for the ferry with no practise and when she gets to Italy, casually mentions that she had to find a bike shop as she was wondering if it was time for someone to pump up her tyres. To paraphrase some of her other attitudes:

Crosses a large desert people have died in 'no need to take water, someone always passes and offers you some'.

Never learns to fix a puncture 'Its better to employ a local to do it as it gives them money. Someone on a truck always turns up however empty the landscape and you can get a lift from them'

Interesting read, foolhardy woman, cant believe she was ever trusted to head a school or teach kids as she had not a shred of sense. Died last year still biking. Luck of the devil to make up for the lack of intelligence!

Also around in addition to TooTalls very valid comments is the Mall at Cribbs – traffic hell all autumn, but mostly thats at weekends. However they are building another big housing estate between it and Filton. There are more houses being built by UWE Frencahy at the moment and hundereds more planned when they build on the UWE student car parks (ear marked by the council to start in the next couple of years) and now they have just annonced a park and ride site to go near Parkway Station, so lots of commuters will travel there, instead of using other routes to go further into town.

The pic of Wales from Severn Beach is nice but totally misses the vast underside of the 2nd severn crossing and its approach roads. Are the clouds discharge from Avonmouth? :-p

I was mostly assuming a car commute – times on a bike locally are quicker, good point.

Indeed I would die if Severn Beach was the best view! Buts its all personal perspective eh? 🙂

You will find articles on http://www.road.cc which Singletrack links to over there on the right of the page.

Also try other bike forums/news sites like bikebiz, bikeradar – lots of stuff about on this subject, though mostly confused speculation and disappointment at this point in time.

I don't see age has anything to do with it. Besides, who would stop a man of the same age from having one cos he was 'too old'?

I would have thought it more fun to have henna ones or temp ones though as you can change them and move them around and you are not stuck with them forever.

Bottom line though is do what makes you happy, not what pleases other people or your daughter.

I am a bit surprised at some of the suggestions – in a Bristol rush hour (only its longer than an hour both ends of the day) the traffic is very heavy both entering/leaving it and crossing the city.

There is no way at all some of the suggested areas will let you access Filton in 30 mins. Many wont make it for at least an hour or quite a bit longer – the road route to Bath is a good 40 mins when there are no queues at all never mind in rush hour. Travelling across Bristol is very dependent on which area you start from. It can be very trying.

To grasp the commuter problem and how bad it is around the Filton and South Glos areas, look on a map. It can take literally take over an hour to travel from say just Winterbourne to the MOD at Abbey Wood area in term time for example, which is a 15 min drive tops the rest of the time. A friend of mine regularly finds this. I have travelled between the hotel by the UWE Frenchay campus to Parkway train station in mid winter rush hour peak and its taken nearly an hour! It possible to walk that distance in less than 40 mins.

Try looking up the Western Daily Press, Bristol Evening Post or Thornbury Gazette for stories on congestion and people complaining that they are still building houses despite the lack of infrastructure.

The costs of traveling over the Severn Bridges are already over £5 per day, plus fuel etc and the price goes up every January. Often the older bridge is shut due to weather problems which causes big diversions.

Its mostly a nice area when out of rush hour but I really would suggest you not be taken in by how close things look on a map and assuming the commuter time is therefore equally short.

Just seen someone suggested Severn Beach – there is no beach, just mud and modern housing estates and the tail end of the 2nd severn bridge looming over it all. Kill yourself rather than go there!