I remember them doing a course a few years ago but not seen one since. Cut backs.?

Yeah, probably. My friend is supposed to be a cycling proficiency trainer, but the entire scheme is in chaos as her superior was made redundant in the cutbacks. No-one knows what’s going on with the scheme, and she doesn’t know if she’ll be going around the schools this year. :(

Mrs Toast – I was watching Countyphile last night and joking about having TB like the cows (poor bloke, devastating thing to happen), but it did make me think. Did your dad recover ok ?

Yeah, he was fine – it was in the 70s, before I was born. He had to spend months in hospital (9 I think?), and 2 years on medication afterwards. They also found out he was horribly allergic to streptomycin, which is injected into the arse, so had to have an alternate medication in the form of tablets.

His favourite prank to pull on medical staff in his later years was to not mention his TB history when he had a chest x-ray, just to see the expression on their faces.

But yeah, not a nice illness at all!

My dad coughed up blood when he was in his 30s. It was TB (and he’d been vaccinated).

Go to the doctor’s!

Button Button

Mr Toast once kneed me in the spine whilst shouting nonsense. I normally find the occasional nocturnal bellowing quite entertaining… the knee to the spine less so!

Clearly the Ashes are something that can be swayed by the might of… POWER BANDS!

It was the Australian advertising authority that forced the Power Band manufacturers to apologise and change their marketing. Concidence? I think not!

ALL HAIL THE POWER OF RUBBER AND HOLOGRAMS!

When I was little, I used to put sugar on Frosties and Crunchy Nut Cornflakes.

Those were the days!

Unlike Royal Mail (or is it Jamie?) this thread delivers!

There is currently no one working or caring harder in the office right now than Jamie is and he is coping amazingly well.

Pish, I heard he was also responsible for stealing a small robot crab I ordered at the start of December (was delivered Tuesday just gone) and a Kindle case that was due to be delivered 30th December (still not arrived).

AND he shot JFK.

She seems not to work

– not really any of your business

drink heavily and often ‘parties’ late into the night

– if there’s noise involved at unreasonable hours (11pm – 7am, I think?) then contact your local Environmental Health department or her housing association. Keep a record of incidents.

My immediate neighbour is convinced the women is a prostitute as she has many gentleman ‘friends’ visiting at strange hours.

– I thought she didn’t work? :P Again, not really anyone’s business.

She has verbally threatened me, and my wife, for parking outside her house

– obviously that’s not on, you’ve already contacted the police, not really much more you can do other than keep a record of incidents and to contact her housing association if it happens again.

and the attention that she pays to the upkeep of her proper is, shall we say, non-existant.

– Again, this would probably be a matter for her housing association.

How to Train Your Dragon. It’s got dragons and vikings in it, therefore is ace.

Changing Optimus Prime’s vehicle mode form from a cab-over to a conventional style truck.
It genuinely upset me.
They shouldn’t be allowed to sully peoples childhood icons like that

I thought Optimus got off quite lightly compared to how the Decepticons ended up – featureless, silver and spikey. :( AND at least Peter Cullen did his voice.

Are you choosing to be good or bad?

I was so nauseatingly good that Mr Toast found it painful to watch me playing it. Dutifully scouring the landscape to help an old fella make a bouquet of flowers for his wife, tying up the (still living) bounty target and trying to avoid killing their lackeys hoping they’d get bored to keep my kill count down…

“It’s all right love, you can kill them, it doesn’t count against you”

“Nooo, must avoid unecessary bloodshed!”

Anyone remember Dino Dini’s Kick Off 2 on the Amiga? Now there was a game I lost my youth on.

My brother used to play that loads, never liked football games though – preferred Speedball 2 in terms of sports games! :P

I’m still a big gamer now, mainly on the 360, PC and DS – at least I’ve got the ‘I need it for work’ excuse!

I still get exercise, whether it’s out and about in the woods or on the exercise bike whilst watching Supernatural.

What about baby wombles?

:lol:

I’d like a decent vacuum cleaner, but an upright, can’t be arsed with lugging around our cylinder cleaner. Which is a Dyson. And not great. But it’s the landlord’s, so we don’t complain.

63 is far too old to be a father.

Rod Stewart’s 65 and got kid number 8 on the way, following his third marriage and numerous relationships. I’d say that should ring more warning bells than Elton’s situation, yet strangely I can’t find the thread on that…

Christian or not, Who cares? It has a positive message.

And talking animals. Don’t forget the talking animals!

trailmonkey what do you mean a mom? a Mother ? are we american now?

Oi, I’ll have you know that a good chunk of the West Midlands were using the term ‘mom’ before the Yanks! :P

And I wouldn’t agree that kids ‘need’ a mom – my mate was raised by her dad (her mother died when she was 1, her dad remarried when she was in her early 20s), didn’t do her any harm at all. Just like I don’t agree that the mother should automatically get custody in divorce cases – there’s more to being a parent than your gender. I don’t think that being in possession of a penis renders you completely incapable of raising a child without female assistance.

We seem to keep returning to this theme like it’s some kind of justification.

Well, leaving that aside:

Age – yes, could potentially be a bit awkward, or Elton could live another 40 years in good health. Look at Bruce Forsythe, 80 odd and still working and dancing. Yes, the older you get the get the more likely you are to struggle to recover from illness and injury, but Elton will be able to afford the very finest healthcare.

It’s easy to say, “Ah, but older people won’t be able to play runabout with their kids, and will struggle”, but so will fat people. Smokers are more likely to suffer illness and life threatening disease than most, and are more likely to cause damage to their kids with their lifestyle. Where do you draw the line between who should and shouldn’t become parents? If you say, “Well, if they can’t have kids naturally”, does that mean you support a blanket ban on infertile couples adopting, or having IVF or surrogates?

Relationship – they’ve been together for over 15 years, seems pretty stable to me. The gay thing’s a bit of a non-issue in this day and age, surely?

As long as kids have a parent that loves and supports them, and raises them to be a decent human being, does it really matter what flavour they come in?

If you’ve got a receipt, you’re definitely entitled to a refund (as long as the shop can’t prove that the item was damaged through misuse). If you’ve not got a receipt it gets trickier – you’ll need a bank statement/card statement. Think if you’ve paid cash you’ll have to fight a bit more.

I’m not sure, but I know when I worked in retail you could only give refunds in the way they’d been paid for, ie if it had been paid by card, you had to refund it back onto the original card, if it was cash it was a cash refund, if it was vouchers, the refund was in vouchers, etc.

Personally I am deeply suspicious of anyone who decided to circumvent the normal adoption procedures or UK surrogacy procedures by going abroad. In particular, in California there are far fewer restrictions on surrogacy than in the UK – ie it is OK not just to cover expenses, but to pay the surrogate mother however much you like

They wouldn’t be allowed in the UK because of Elton’s age, would they? And they have tried to adopt before (in the Ukraine), but again Elton was considered too old and their civil partnership wasn’t regarded as a marriage.

It’s hardly anything new, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt have a veritable collection of adopted kids from across the world. Madonna’s got a couple too. Callista Flockhart adopted a kid as a single mother in her late 30s, to which Harrison Ford later became a father to (at the age of 60). It may all be a bit odd to some people, but I can think of worse parents.

Nothing to worry about anyway, all french cars shed parts as part of their normal operating mode.

Don’t get me started…

*plots to get adopted by Northwind*

Our local shop sells the giant individual Quality Street, and me and t’husband cleared them out completely of green triangles. They’ve not had any for weeks, whilst having an abundance of giant caramel cups on those purple ones. CURSE THEM!

I dislike 3d films, so does t’hubby. We’ll always go and see it in 2d if the option’s available. A lot of the time, it just looks weird – I don’t know if my brain isn’t quite wired up to my eyes correctly. Remember those Magic Eye pictures? I could kind of see them, but instead of the image leaping out in glorious 3d, I could only see the shape of the image, as if it had been cut out of a sheet of paper – kind of inverted from what you’re supposed to see. :/

Long story short, for me a lot of the time it looks rubbish, is distracting, gives me a headache and I have to remember to put contacts in because 3d glasses over my normal glasses is less than comfortable.

Still, not as bad for me as it is for a bloke at work, he’s blind in one eye so 3d is completely out of the window for him…

Of course ‘everyday’ lingerie and ‘boudoir’ lingerie must not be mixed up!

Nor should the ‘everyday’ lingerie be hidden, in an effort to encourage permanent wearing of the ‘boudoir’ lingerie! :lol:

Anything by Black Sabbath. Also consider Smoke on the Water by Deep Purple and the intro to Enter Sandman – you’ll need these when you try out new guitars in music shops in the future. The staff will love you.

Salaried here, we don’t get paid overtime. We get 1/2 a day time in lieu for every 3 hours overtime we work though – the 3 hours has to be worked in a single block, you wouldn’t get 1/2 day off if you worked an extra hour for 3 days for example. Same rate applies for weekends and Bank Holidays.

Ah, you need to read these:

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/07/dog.html

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/11/dogs-dont-understand-basic-concepts.html

I’ve had a severe cough for over a month now, still coughing up phlegm. Had a couple of days off two weeks ago when I was feeling at my worst, but work kind of look down on it. Well, the management do, all my colleagues want me to bugger off because a) they’re worried I’ll infect them for Christmas and b) they’re getting annoyed with my coughing.

As I had a 6 month chest infection from October last year to March this year, I decided to go to the doctors if this cough lasted over a month. Unfortunately after a quick listen to my chest my doctor announced that it was ‘just viral’ and there’s nothing to be done but to sit it out. She then went back to browsing the Asda website. -_-

It’s annoying because my coughing is at its worst when I move, which rules out exercise – I’ve not been biking for ages in the hope that if I stay warm it’d sort itself out. I never used to get bad colds but I hit 29 and I just get ridiculously long lasting ones. I want to go out on my bike, but I tend to get a bit dizzy after a particularly enthusiastic coughing fit and don’t much fancy passing out in the woods.

/tale of woe

“Light makeup consisting of foundation, mascara and discreet lipstick … will enhance your personality,”

I’m fairly certain my personality remains fairly constant regardless of how much Max Factor I plaster on, I’m not Jem.

I used to love Christmas, but I hate the way my mother turns it into a miseryfest every year, getting stroppy about us visiting Mr Toast’s parents. We’re spending Xmas and Boxing day with her, and we took her away for a week in the summer. But she still complains that she hardly ever sees us (apparently not seeing Mr Toast’s parents since last Xmas is OK), and complains that I’ve abandoned my family.

This from a woman who turned up to my 30th birthday meal so drunk she could barely walk. When I pointed this out, she said, “Well maybe if I saw more of you I wouldn’t drink so much”. She’s been an alcoholic since my early teens at the very least, and makes her kids lives difficult by insulting pretty much anyone connected to them. She called by best mate a slut. She suggested that my other mate was a heroin dealer (he’s not). She said that my brother’s wife was a “spoilt, precious princess”. She said this to my brother’s wife’s mother. She didn’t even mean it to be insulting – she just can’t help herself.

Machine Head – Davidian

Pantera – Walk

Warning, videos contain sweary sweaty men.

“But seriously, they may ‘live’ there, but would only need to there term time and week-days.”

I don’t think this would work, unless the system has changed. When I was looking at going to uni, I wanted to move away to uni. My mother said she’d only support me if I chose a local university and stayed at home.

I tried to find out if there was any way I could go further afield, but I was told that because of my parent’s income I wouldn’t be able to recieve much in the way of student loans. I was told the only way my parent’s income would be discounted is if I’d been estranged from them for three years – I’m not sure if sending them to your parents and seeing them every weekend will count. :/

As a result, my choices were limited and I went to a sub-par uni. But on the plus side, I did come out of it completely free of debt, and I got a degree, so for that Im grateful.

Can’t narrow it down to just three. He’s handsome, funny, sweet and kind, plus puts up with me!

why? Surely Orwell does not have the monopoly on finding abbreviations of Marxist terminology?

But there’s a misplaced apostrophe. Or it came to a premature end, and we’re supposed to be looking down our noses at something belonging to the unwashed prol.

Voted for Stodge, testosterone-driven middle-aged men in lycra need to be appeased lest they rage across the internet and are forced to argue on forums!

Plus I couldn’t in good conscience vote for someone who puts up a picture of their daughter in stockings, then gets all sniffy that men are fapping drooling over it.

Have you met the internet?

man love daisychain ?

Human Centipede?

Our wedding reception was ace – we had a guy who used to be a DJ for BRMB DJing, but he said he’d happily play anything we asked for, including our own CDs. First dance to Queen’s “You’re My Best Friend”, then an hour of ‘normal’ pop stuff, then on came the metal.

Stuck to ‘safer’ stuff like Metallica, Slayer, Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, AC/DC, Pantera etc rather than cracking out the Morbid Angel and Emperor. Bizarrely by the time Enter Sandman came on everyone was on the dance floor and seemed to have a mystical knowledge of the lyrics, regardless of previous musical preferences.

Rammstein might be good, quite catchy and little to no swearing (possibly, my German’s a bit rusty). If they’re in their late 20s/early 30s they might appreciate some 90s softer stuff like Terrorvision and the Wildhearts.

Incidentally, headbanging whilst wearing a tiara is hard.

Celibate Jewish Zombie or fat bearded man who sneaks into your house, eats your mince pies and leaves presents for children? Decisions, decisions.