That’s a conveniently rounded figure. Have you been given a breakdown of charges.

Amazing image, would love to take a trip on the ISS and just sit and look out the window.

I’m sure the designer of that wanted to pilot a Tie-fighter.

Hi-res version of the original image available here.

Yeah, twice.

I carried on working, they carried on paying me.

I was actually hoping for some changes, namely they would get rid of some of the dead wood at management level. Unfortunately there’s more of them than before.

or…

have an aggressive massage – percusive type massage – to really hurt the muscle (and you), then let it recover and then try a powerball, but using it slower than max as a therapeutic exercise.

Which muscle would that be. What with tennis elbow being a tendon problem I’m not too sure how ‘hurting’ some random muscle would help.

YES!

The man’s a legend.

I’ve had this in both arms in the last few years. The first time it was cured with physio in about 6 sessions. The second time, despite many visits, physio was unable to do anything. I ended up just resting the arm (no heavy lifting etc) as much as possible for about six months whilst icing it twice a day and wearing a tennis elbow strap along with doing the exercises shown me ny the physio. It took a while but is all good now.

Get yourself a gel ice pack like this and a strap such as this.. And Google tennis elbow exercises.

Have you been to your GP? If not go and get professional advice and maybe a physio referral.

I fainted in the curry shop when I heard the news.

Thats me in the korma.*

I’ll get me coat.

*Shamelessly nicked from Radcliffe and Maconie.

MediaMonkey will do everything you need and more.[/url]

Could be worse than the Clubman or the nissan, he could have bought one of these monstrosities:

It actually looks worse in real life than that picture. I was behind one yesterday and it looks like the Top Gear crew have dropped a piano on a normal Range Rover.

Of course the real danger is if he kicks the bucket and you inherit it.

The dish may be on their side but the screws holding it on must be protruding over the line onto your side. So offer them a compromise, the dish can stay as long as the screws are removed. :D

Why do the merkins have to try and claim everything.

The Grifter was launched onto an ususpecting world in May ’76, some 5 months before this so called invention of mountain biking.

I know which event I can trace my unbroken line too and I’ve never been to Marin County.

All hail the Grifter

edit: Just watch your knee on those bars when the gears slip.

edit: Too slow

And it wasn’t a medical professional.

I used to be, if it helps.

And that picture what iDave posted – that’s perfectly legal assuming the baby’s hat is CE marked.

There are only three stipulations for pillion passengers in the U.K. –

1) They must wear a correctly fitted, safety approved helmet.
2) They must be able to comfortably reach the foot-pegs (and if that means raising the foot-peg mounting points to accommodate a child on the pillion seat, that is perfectly legal).
3) If they are under the age of 17, they must have a parent or guardian’s consent to ride as a passenger on the motorcycle.

Advice re’ my eldery father

Was your mother a hamster.

As I expected no one turned up, at least they hadn’t when I left at 7am.

I really don’t think the call was from overseas, I don’t think many foreigners can do a convincing East Midlands accent.

Oddly enough I noticed at the weekend that my name and number was in the new phone book which arrived last week, I’m sure it wasn’t in previously – coincidence?

If he calls again I’ll try and glean how much information he has – on last nights call he only referred to me as Mr C….. At no time did he use my Christian name, and as I only use my Sunday best name on very official documents (passport etc) and all my financial stuff is in my middle name (by which I am generally known) then I may get a clue as to where he got my details from.!

did you not do 141 and get there number and then call the Police.

I think you mean 1471 and see up there, the bit where it says number witheld.

I can’t see what crime has been committed here so calling the police seems a bit premature. I’m fairly sure it’s some sort of wind up, but by who and to what end I have no idea. Should said large gentlemen darken my door in the morning then a call will be made.

I have my Bombers* ready and have preloaded my daughter’s water gun as I don’t think I could hit their shoes from an upstairs window.

*I say Bombers – it’s actually a pair Marzocchi elastomer forks dating from about 1994 before they started using the name Bomber – will these do? Otherwise I’m going to have strip my bike down.

I know about the right of entry legalities – as I said they won’t be getting in.

‘My car’ actually belongs to Lex and my new one is coming next week so they are welcome to it.

You could call polis now and maybe get them to call the no that called you?

Number was witheld.

And call your mates up, this sounds like a wind up.

I have no mates with a sense of humour like this.

How is your credit card 17p in credit?

I used it for a 0% transfer type deal and let the standing order run a month too long. They refunded me and a month later due to me being in credit they paid me another 17p.

Lenton Lodge, gateway to this stately pile where they are currently filming the latest Batman film. I used to love visiting here as a kid.

Oh, and this:

As with any gateway you pass through and don’t stop.

but would he have seen intelligence of any kind?

In the Tory party? Unlikely.

Can’t help wondering what poppa would look like in (just) that hat….

Is this some sort of Brokeback Mountain daddy fixation type thing.

I thought this was gonna be about not wearing undercrackers in this hot weather.

Request for clarification – to get to Morden, are you crossing at Euston or going via Bank?

I’ll play a double crossover sweep

Both – there’s a clue in there somewhere. Newbie.

*takes Red token*

And….. where are you playing the token. :roll:

If you are just holding onto it then I’ll play a double crossover sweep to Morden

everyone knows glasto is a corporate sell out. it’s a money maker.

That explains why Michael Eavis has sold the expensive advertising space on the front of the Pyramid stage to those well known corporate behemoths Greenpeace and Oxfam :roll:

LOL at Charlie.

Oh, and well done.

The Roomster? Isn’t that the one that looks like two cars welded together. Maybe they’ve only given you the V5 for the back half. :-)

Mine’s the anorak with the mittens on a string.

Sorry to disappoint/thanks for your concern but I’ve not ended up under a pile of rubble or someone else’s canopy – I’m working away from home this week so I don’t have much chance to get on here. It might have been a close thing with ending up under another canopy, at least one of the neighbour’s canopies looks like it won’t be up for much longer as I could have got my fingers into the gap between the wall and the top of the support truss and I felt nervous just standing under it.

I contacted Bellway customer care on Monday morning and spoke to a very helpful lady who took all the details and seemed genuinely concerned. She rang me back in the early afternoon to tell me they would be replacing my canopy and retrofitting all the others with the correct fixings within ten working days. I must say I was very surprised it was this easy – I won’t be home until tomorrow so don’t know if anything has actually been done.

The before and after photographs don’t match?

There is no before photograph – the first picture was just an example of the type.

This is what it looked a few years back on Google Streetmaps.

If you just want to get your porch restored without reference to the broader safety issues you need to get to the builder and offer to keep quiet if they fix it for you

There will be no offer to keep quiet – a lot of these canopies are very close to the footpath and, like mine, could fall on anyone passing by including my daughter – I will be insisting they are all checked and re-fixed correctly. Armed with the evidence from the manufacturers website I am going to talk to all the neighbours with the same type canopy this afternoon.

I’ve just noticed on the canopy a small label with the manufacturers name on it – StormKing. I have been to their website and discovered a pdf of “Fixing / Loading Information For Standard Stormking Canopies”. On this it states that for the kind of canopy I have (Apex Trussed variety) the minimum fixing for solid brick is M10 Rawlock bolts. I believe the technical term for this is “bang to rights”. :D

Edit: Can we take the argument about who is responsible elsewhere before another thread gets closed – I bought the house from the builder, whether they subcontracted the work is no concern of mine, my contract is with Bellway.

There is no justification for feeling charitable towards the builder or in any way helping them with a cover-up.

In no way do I feel charitable towards the builder (already named and shamed above) I just feel in the interest of fairness I should give someone in a managerial capacity the chance to say whether or not they are going to do anything before kicking up a fuss. There will not be anything like a cover-up, if the builder doesn’t fix mine and retrofit all the others on this site I will be onto the local paper and any other channels available (this will probably be front page news in my local rag).

I think I’d be camped outside the sales centre with the remnants of the porch and the tiles in a big heap on the floor for all their potential customers to see until I was satisfied they were going to something about it

This is an avenue I had considered and may still be taken should all others be exhausted, but at the moment I have no way of getting it there short of cutting it up.

I’ve just been to the sales centre. The woman in there was with a customer and really couldn’t get me out of the door quick enough. All she would say was that it was outside the builders guarantee period and was completely unconcerned that another of these things could fall off and hurt someone. She told me to ring head office in the morning but I had to fight to get her to give me the number.

I am a bit reticent about going round all the neighbours and stirring anything up until I’ve given the builder (Bellway by the way) a chance to deal with the issue. I’ve been round and counted 17 more of this exact same design on the development and also some much larger ones which appeared to be supported in the same way. I will ring the head office first thing, if they don’t show some urgent interest then I will be onto building control and round the neighbours.

The canopy as it is now (without any slates) takes two people to lift and we estimated the weight to be somewhere about 100kg. There are 66 tiles on next doors canopy and having weighed one I know they weigh just over 2kg each. So this thing weighs well north of 200kg. On closer inspection in the daylight I discovered there were actually only 6 screws holding it up and they were only into brown rawlplugs, on one of these the plug was into mortar and doing nothing to provide support. And it turns out I was being generous when I said there was 2½ inches of screw in the wall – this was one of the longer screws. The 4 screws holding the supporting brackets underneath had 1¾ inches of screw in the wall:

Anyone know of any online resources which give recommended load limits for different kinds of fixings?

allowing a rotation about the lower fixings while the uppers fixings pulled straight out of the wall.

At least one of the lower fixings has sheared – I could see the remnants of the screw in the wall, but it has clearly rotated away from the wall to end up where it did.

Off to bed now – thanks for all the comments.