Alex, got your email. You shall have a reply as soon as I get chance.
Magistrates Court will refer you to the council (they have no dealngs what so ever with the bailif company), the council will pass you over to the bailif company, the bailf company will ask you "have you got the money?" and all they want to hear is "yes". Anything else is white noise.
I take no pride in how I earn one half of my living.

yes, the council can't instruct a bailif company, apply for attachment of earnngs, attachment of benefts, place a charge on the property, begin bankruptcy proceedngs or do anythng other than send letters without issuing a summons and obtaining the liability order first. Even after the summons is issued, the council would MUCH prefer to reset a payment plan directly with the liable person.

Having read some of the well meanng advice on this thread I'd strongly advise everyone to pay their council tax without fail at each and every statutory payment date. You could get yourselves in a whole heap of bother :-}

"You've paid up to the council, ignore him and move on." Please don't tell him that.

"My understanding was that the only people allowed on your property without your consent are the Royal Mail and people with court orders. Bailiff or no, if some thug turned up on my doorstep without a court order I'd be seeking to have the police remove him under trespass laws.

Either way, he absolutely cannot remove property without a court order, so you can add theft to his charges.

If this has changed, it'd be good to know.

How long has this been going on? Seems odd that the council would send in the heavies for a missed payment. Are you sure he's not just a chancer?"

Sorry Cougar, for the most part, you're wrong. The court order has been obtained. That would have been the liability order the council obtained at Magistrates Court before they were able to instruct the bailif company.

Mr Nutt – chuck me an email. He's NOT acting illegally (used to be barca2 but I forgot my log in).
Don't chuck stones at me but I spend half my week sending bailifs after people for unpaid c/tax.
Incorrect/unqualfied but well intended advice on here can cost you a lot of money.

Here's somethng that might be of relevance.
2 and a half days per week I work in a council tax recovery department.
If somebody telephones the council to advise they are moving out of a property, we take their word for it, end liabilty and send a final statement.
If any amount remains unpaid (no response) when it's sent to the actual property or forwarding address and it carries on through liabilty order and still no response, I send it to commercial bailifs. They go to the property or forwarding address. They are not nice people. They have one purpose and that's get some money. They require evidence that you aren't the person owing council tax. It can and often does get very unseemly but I'm not allowed to carry out an Experian trace through Locktor unless the bailiff is sure you are not the person OR (and this could be the salient point) any of the reminders etc. issued are returned unopened marked as "Not known at this address" or similar.
I recommend any post not addressed to you but arriving with your property details be returned as above where possible.

You are joking aren't you?
Cyclist appraching parked car. What the hell would anybody ever think he was going to do? Evaporate?
It's obvious to a blind man on a galloping horse that he's going to come out to the right to get round it. The car driver surely can see that's about to happen and all he or she has to (and should do) is hang on a sec' and give him chance to get past the car.

£40 hand brace to support broken fingers so I can ride
£15 petrol for the 120 mile car round trip to Llandegla today
£10 for two snack meals and drinks at Llandegla
£25 to have rarely used bike serviced so friend can ride
£5 drinks to have during drive.
Pedalled half way up the trail from the car park, friend has mahoosive asthma attack completely out of the blue.
£20 on flowers to try and make her feel better because she was extremely embarrassed and worried that my day was ruined – I'm just happy that she's OK, bad things happen, nobody's fault and we'll have a laugh about it.
At least I'll be able ride a little while I'm in NZ and my friend can use her bike again now it's serviced.

If the cycle lane has a split white outer line it's legal to park in it. If it's a continuous white outer line, it's not.

How do you take the rubber hoods off to fit cables etc?!?

What else are you planning on putting in there?

Off the bike at the mo' – broke my hand in a road bike / badger interface on Macclesfield Rd. Is it urgent?

If you're buying new, Decathlon beat all comers at £500 but as above, £500 in the 2nd hand market will get you something in very good condition, carbon forked and probably seat post as well, 105 if not Ultegra components, nothing shabby at all.

I love your whacked out choice of colours for bicycles, you crazy dude.
xx

Loads of thanks to Leighton for the ace directons emailed directly.

Found it. http://byekyle.blogspot.com/

I got my velcro straps from a guy in America who was featured in Dirtrag. They're really good. Loads of colours to choose from. They have very strong velcro, sturdy D ring and a rubberized secton so that it doesn't rub on the seatpost. Not a single mark on my carbon seatposts. I'll see if I can find a link.

I had one of the original style Hammerheads and it was very heavy compared to the Osprey equivalent. The newer style may be lighter but if not, the weight alone would put me off. I also found it overly busy. It had more pockets than the Endura Humvee Bondage shorts had zips.

Brilliant stuff, thank you!
I've had a speed read of it and it suggests it's not open yet. Does anybody know if this is the case at all?
I AA route planned the station postcode and Afan's post code and that was 12 miles, disco_stu.

Osprey Talon 5.5 for rides where a couple of bottles on the bike and a tube wrapped to the seatpost isn't enough or Osprey 12 for bigger rides with more clothes to carry.
I now even have an Osprey courier bag. They're the Man. City of the bag world. Underated, understated, classy and about to go global.

Stem, bars and pedals are all hefty'ish. You could take a fair bit off by upgrading from LX to XT or XTR I would have thought.
I'm sure others will be along with better ideas shortly.

Now then, what is this Sandstone Way of which you mention?

Found it http://www.sandstonetrail.co.uk/

Oh, I rode the Cheshire Canal Ring. The real achievement was staying sane. That was a mother of a boring day out. I can't even think why I did it twice.

I'm not quite sure what you're asking but I've ridden the Cheshire Ring twice. I won't be doing it a third time.
It took me 8 – 9 hours with relaxed food stops.
I started (and unsurprisingly finished) in Marple.
It gets pretty 'iffy in Manchester. You'll have to abandon the tow path to cross the city centre.
I started by 6:00am both times to get a head start on walkers and did it both times mid week.

"Try getting a dead chomped wasp out of a screaming three year old was a challange!)"

I'm sorry Ski- I shouldn't have found that at all funny but it made me laugh :-]

Protein in fluid form consumed by spoonie and then secreted through the g- oh sod it, I really can't be bothered Tedium Jeremy. I'm beaten and broken.
Apologies for the disruption everyone.

Does anybody have any tips on how I can get my daughter to not act out her Tim Booth impersonation everytime one comes within twenty yards of her? I can hardly breathe in the house with all wasp killing spray floating around. I'd really rather not splatter them but my sanity is hanging by a thread.

"just reread the post I criticised. maybe you were trying to oversimplify but what you posted is simply wrong. Perhaps you got confused."

**Comment deleted again. I'm trying hard to be polite.**

Spoonie. That would do it. Liquid intake is preferable as it will be secreted much faster than in solid form. Don't over do it though and only really when you are right royally beasting yourself – oo-er! :-}

Oh my very word. Apologies to all contributors who are enjoying a constructive discussion.
Jeremy. 2:1. Sports Science with Human Biology. Chester College. What do I know?
I bow to your greater knowledge and understanding if Wikipedea rates higher.
I'm going to try and find a link to the (all be it quite recent) papers that have theorised (at least but I'm sure were rereferenced, tested and published) that damage to cells caused by extreme fatigue stress leached protein and that replenishing protein during this period was massively beneficial in the reduction of prolonged damage to type 1 and 2 fast twitch muscle fibres.
Deleted what I had previously typed. I'm too old to be carrying on in that manner :-)

Hmmm, I'm doubtng myself and the 6 month rule now. Any valuaton queries get referred straght to them (part of the IR).
The area in which you live (which will efect the value of the property) has a bearing as well. The exact property in a poorer area will be a lower band than yours.
Good luck Kona.

Yes, very definitely. Assumed band is applied to propertes if the VOA haven't had chance to band it yet. Anything you pay obvously goes to the balance of the charge and any overpayment can be refunded to you.
If it s assumed bandng, you can contact the council and have it changed if you like but, say for example you ask for it to be given an assumed band B and then VOA come along and say it's band C and they do this in January, you only have untl 31st March maximum to make up the shortfall.
If it's confirmed banding, give VOA a ring and get an appeal in if you don't agree with it but you best be quick. If I remember correctly, you only get 6 months from its banding date to appeal.
I work in the c/tax dept. for Stockport council two and a bit days per week.
Ps. It will say "Assumed" very clearly on the bill if it is. If it doesn't, it's been fixed banded. VOA will sort you out, they're pretty efficient.

Has it actually been banded by the Valuation Office or is it an assumed band by the council?

You know what TJ – what do I know? Ignore me. I have an academic and personal interest in keeping up to date with research in a wide area of sports science and inparticularly physiology.
You have stuff you've read – no competition. I know when I'm beat.
Your changes in opinion and back tracking give me whiplash.

It gets exponentially tougher to balance the nearer you get to your absolute optimum Chucky. Certainly most of your training needs to be in lower zones but hard sessions of your training (which should make up about 30% of your training) should be really hard, dynamic, muscle stressing specific followed by a day or so of virtually complete rest with heavy bias of protien intake. Critically, during these sessions, protien heavy intake will help massively as protien is leached from the cells madly during this kind of exercise and taking protien during will vastly lessen recovery time so that you can get back into your low zone work sooner with less discomfort, thereby making your subsequent sessions more effective.
A good indicator is too find a short, hard, steady hill – on or off road that you can beast up once a week and track your heart rate, time taken and how hard out of ten you percieve to have worked to get up it.
Any significant reduction in time, increase in heart rate or perceived effort should result in some prolonged rest. Most of all though, eat well.

Any (non Wikipedia) links to the peer reviewed and published research Tandem?
According to my course work, your figures are very conservative and I'm particularly interested in what you have to say with regard to "metabolic effects".
I have some awareness of the subject through Uni' studies and a condition I take medication for.

If you're that close to it Chucky, you need to be keeping a very close watch on your performance and be sure it's excess fat you're losing and not muscle.

Why do you say that Tandem? If he loses the weight and then maintains an equal calorie balance, he won't put it back on.

Just over 1000 cals per day deficit. That should be doable with some discipline and activity assuming the weight you want to lose is all excess.
Hora – you really are a cock!

Offerton Green to Chester and back on road early Saturday morning and then dragged round Meadowhell in the afternoon.

The super long slide was taken out years ago. I think it was when Stockport Council gave the park over to the National Trust and somebody was spotted enjoying themselves.
The NT literature (including the silly CD included in the entrance fee – £4:50) says the park is in the Peak District. You'd have to do 5 more miles past the park to go into the Peak District.

"PROMO: SUNT1 – 30% off selected bikes & 25% off non-sale Specialized helmets"

Copied from the Evans website

Congratulations to you both.
I thought you'd given it all up for running.