Good work!

My parent bought a six bed ex-nursing home in 1976 when I was just 11.

It had been repossessed, then squatted in and then empty for two years and had the planks nailed across the windows etc.

Me and my dad’s first task was to rip up all the carpets and take them down to the local dump in our Ford Anglia estate. I can still remember the stench as I hung my head out of wide open the passenger window.

But it was worth it in the end as will yours be. I’m by no means an expert but with something the size of yours I would recommend prioritising and tackling small areas at a time e.g. get the kitchen done first and then the living room etc.

They don’t need to be perfect, just enough to allow you to live a normal life so you don’t feel like your whole existence is on a building site you can always revisit and upgrade as you get more of an idea of what you want.

I follow lots of people and lots of people follow me.

I only tend to follow people I have ridden with or spoken with rather than just randoms. I ride with and speak with many people.

Some randoms follow me but I don’t really mind.

There is an element of ego massaging but so what? If you don’t like social media then no-one is forcing you to partake.

Is the OP’s ego being massaged by this moving onto the second page?

nealglover – Member
I literally have no idea what this means
http://bigbangtheory.wikia.com/wiki/The_Official_Apartment_4A_Flag

ah ok cheers. Don’t watch it.

I went to Cornwall with the in-laws a couple of years ago and my FIL was concerned about the number of ISIS flags that were on display #palmface

Onzadog – Member
Buy him a new flag of a rampant lion on a field of azure blue. Then just say he watches a lot of E4

I literally have no idea what this means

my next door but two neighbour has a flagpole in his back garden and flies a flag all the time.

Mind you he’s an ex-RAF type in his 70’s and it’s usually an RAF flag (sky blue with a roundel) and he’s normally out the front cleaning, polishing or fixing his RAF ambulance that looks a bit like this.

He also has an old metal railway signal in his back garden and a small gauge railway that runs the length of his garden (circa 100 metres) and then through his garage and out onto the front garden before disappearing down the side of his house again.

Interesting guy.

seeing as this has evolved (or has it devolved) into random navy stuff I feel comfortable adding my own little anecdote.

One of my cousins was in the US Navy for his whole career (he went to Annapolis and was in the experimental diving unit I think although I never bothered discovering if he actually was a diver or this was just a front for some other kind of wet-work).

His main hobby is marathon running and he used to train by running around the ‘edge’ of whichever carrier/ship he was on at the time.

I replaced my shonky old iPhone 4s with a Huawei P9 lite and love it

my wife’s nan (gawd bless her soul) was a little old irish lady who lived with my wife’s parents.

Slightly off her trolley (pun intended) she wore a permanent pinny over her clothing and whenever we went round to her parents house she would say ‘you look starving, do you want a cooked breakfast?’

Well yes of course i did. After a few years of knowing her I asked her what she did for a living before she retired. Oh I used to work for the Ministry of Defence she said.

Really? I asked as I sat up; perhaps I had misjudged this little old lady and she was a Stella Rimington-a-like in disguise.

what did you do there?

I used to operate the tea trolley she said.

Stand down chaps…

mikewsmith – Member
To address your downside list…
Dismantling and rebuild is literally 20 mins with a proper bag and 3 tools, pedals off 8mm, rotors off 6 bolt t25, bars off 3mm for me (on the topeak rachet) mech maybe. Into bag strap in, zip up and go. Same at the other end.

Hmmm…I consider myself a pretty handy mechanic but I can’t get anywhere near that.

I have a soft shell bag too so normally pad everything/tape pipe lagging around the frame/forks etc. Just doing this takes more than 20 minutes.

I shall have to drop in to your place with a stop-watch ;)

I’ve done both numerous times with both MTB and road bikes – separate trips. (Hmm.. let’s see, flown probably four trips and driven probably 10 or 12).

Haven’t read what others have written but for me it’s driving every time. As i live in Surrey it’s a shortish trip to the Chunnel on Friday evening and then a long drive overnight arriving Saturday lunchtime. Takes about 12 and a half hours door to door.

it’s a long time in the car so travel with others to share the driving but for me the pro’s and cons are:

Driving:
– usually cheaper if you can share the cost
– you can bung loads of extra gear int he car. spare tyres, tools, workstands, full facer and open lid, you name it, it gets chucked in
– the beauty and joy of putting your bike on the towbar mounted rack at home and then taking it off the other end without any rebuilding hassle etc are priceless
– you are on an MTB road trip!

downsides to driving are:
– it’s very tiring
– if you drive overnight you miss a nights sleep (obvs is obvs)
– you discover the worst of your mates bad habits
– the year i drove my V70 and discovered the aircon had packed up was miserable (2015 and it was 42 degrees when we arrived)

Flying:
Upsides
– it’s much quicker
– you dont miss a nights sleep
– errr….that’s about it

Downsides
– dismantling and boxing up your bike before you leave, then rebuilding when you arrive then dismantling at the end of the week then rebuilding when you get home is a right royal PITA
– transfer from GVA to resort and then back again is expensive
– you are relying on Easyjet to look after your bike
– if your bike misses the flight and therefore you miss the transfer it’s not actually any quicker than driving as my son discovered last year
– it’s usually more expensive

probably more stuff that I’ve forgotten but that’s the main things.

Went there for the first time in my 52 years last June thanks to a 24 hour delay on Easyjet I got a day walking around Rome with the wife.

The place is totes amazeballs as da yout’ would say, sensatory overload. As he says up there, just wander around, there’s literally a breathtaking building at every turn.

Key things for me were the Colosseum, the Vatican, the Pantheon (you really feel the history here), Trevi fountains were especially impressive at night but wherever you go you will be impressed.

Stay right in the centre for maximum enjoyment and just walk and enjoy it.

I didn’t find it any more expensive than anywhere else, even a coffee overlooking the Colosseum was a reasonable price.

Because we were only there for the day we didn’t bother queuing to go into the attractions, just viewed them from the outside. I don’t think we enjoyed it any less than those people who queued three hours to go inside places.

not me but a work colleague. he had one directly on top of his head and with his classic male pattern baldness it looked exactly like a nipple.

I never mentioned it until he had it removed last month after which I queried him on it and he told me it was a sebaceous cyst and his wife insisted on it being removed.

Perhaps she was jealous…

it’s like the dotcom bubble never happened

The Other Guys

Hot Tub Time Machine

I’m 100% English and proud of it.

But my surname shows that I’m descended from a town in Normandy so therefore I’m French.

But Normandy was named after the ‘Northmen’ that conquered and then settled there so I’m actually Viking.

Who really cares?

could be many things and diagnosis via de interwebz is not recommended.

Having said that I’ll throw in it could be the first signs of type 2 diabetes as in fact it could be the first signs of totally nothing or just getting old.

go and see a doctor.

Create your own style with a felt tip pen and a Pink Floyd t shirt. considered totally anarchic back in the day

I’m off to Sutton United v Arsenal on Monday evening.

Given the Ar$e’s mid-week result and the general apathy/lack of spine that seems to be apparent from manager on downwards there is a massive opportunity for more misery to be heaped upon them.

I look forward to spotting the guy from Arsenal Fan TV outside the ground.

That boy’s sure got game. Truemarmalade kudos’d here too.

Take it as some kind of compliment, he obvs sees us as totes Strava big-hitters otherwise he wouldn’t bother.

use messenger (or whatever chat function you have) instead of emails?

Interstellar Overdrive by Pink Floyd from wherever you can find the stereo version (or Piper at the Gates of Dawn to be more precise).

well done. I stopped at RM Cycles on my way to Brugge last year. Really nice place and very helpful.

My mate had two spokes break on his rear wheel and cos it’ only had about 12 spokes it was like a pringle.

RM agreed to get it straight into the workshop, replaced the spokes, straightened the wheel, tweaked his gears which had caused the loss of spokes in the first place, filled up our waterbottles and got us back on the road within 45 minutes.

A tenner was all it cost us too!

This guy cos firstly he’s my best couz but secondly I used to paint models/wargame with him until I was about 16. I gave up, he carried on.

He’s very good and gets commissioned to paint for other gamers.

Von Ketteringham

great game today. Nice to see Lawes hanging onto the ball in the tackle too.

Good finish for the try for England.

Farrell had a great game even if he did miss some kicks. He tackles really well and didn’t complain after he got hit.

interesting convo.

I’ve been very lucky in that for 45 years I could eat whatever I wanted and remain thin. I love carbs and white bread and crisps are particular weaknesses and even though I don’t have a particularly sweet tooth I’m well know around the office for hoovering up anything/everything food-wise.

It’s finally caught up with me though and now I’m 52 I can put on weight quite easily even though I’m still riding 10,000 km p.a.

I’m usually 13st and a few pounds or 82kg to 84kg’s which is still a reasonable weight for me at 6’2″ or 1.88m but twice over the last 15 months I’ve hit 14st or 90kg’s.

The second time I hit 14 stone was over xmas so during the first three weeks of January I stuck to my main meals (including carbs) which are actually quite healthy as the wife likes our two boys to eat healthily. I had absolutely no snacking/cheating in between meals.

Net loss of weight over 3 weeks? Zero.

So I went on a carb-free/low carb diet and lost 7lb (3kg’s) over a long weekend (Friday to Monday inclusive) and carried on losing weight so that I’ve now lost 12lb or circa 6kg’s in three weeks.

As per others above, my food cravings have gone. If I do feel hungry I snack on unsalted nuts, mainly cashews. Yes I know these have carbs in but they are good carbs rather than bad.

I’m well aware of the ketones issue as the wife has been a type 1 diabetic for 40 years. I don’t have high ketones.

Britain has defeated every other country in the world.

Okay, maybe some pseudo-facts here (or do we call them Alt facts now)

Glass is not a solid. it is actually a liquid[/url]

Spartacus? I am Mark E Smith

Woof woof! as Flasheart might say

Here’s two for one from the 60’s (come on, they are only two minutes long)

and the ultimate 70’s pop song

Garry_Lager – Member
Who played the guitar hook on eminem’s massive breakout hit My name is?

Chas and Dave!

More pedantry then, as Chas plays the piano and Dave plays the bass which one was playing the guitar? (Yes, I’m sure like most musicians they both play multiple instruments).

its a great shot indeedy although i saw it last month on facebook and there’s some question about how recently it was taken as the trees look suspiciously in full bloom.

Does it matter? Probably not

houndlegs – Member

Just had a quick look at that winter commute video, not sure I could cope with a busy commute with loads of lights and traffic.

You get used to it but it’s not for the faint-hearted.

dangeourbrain – Member

Do you count pedestrian crossings?

As far as I am concerned if they are light controlled and you are likely to get prosecuted or at least tutted at if you go through a red then it’s a traffic light in my book.

I have a similar commute to @AlanSD1980 up there (although I always forget which year he was born!) and we would often meet on the road and chat.

I’ve also met some lifelong cycling buddies on that commute too over the 11 years that I have ploughing that furrow. I’m sure my bikes (multiple) could navigate themselves without any input from me.

you need to enlist the help of Bob the Vegan.

Can Ve do it?
Yes Ve-gan!

Oh and…

One-one was a racehorse
Two-two was one too
One-one won one race
Two-two won one too

(thanks mum)

stevied – Member

I’m not the pheasant plucker, I’m the pheasant plucker’s son. I’m only plucking pheasants ’til the pheasant plucker comes

I learned that many years ago as “I’m not a pheasant plucker, I’m a pheasant plucker’s son. I sit all day plucking pheasants underneath the pheasant plucking sun”

I think mine scans better.

When people at work ask me what my wife does for a living I tell them it’s not easy to say.

She sells seashells on the sea shore. (Thanks Milton Jones for that one)

I’m a bit late to this party but I’m gonna weigh in with 119 lights in an 18 mile/28km commute.

Well, there’s probably a few more now as it’s a couple of years since I counted them all – here’s the Winter Commute[/url] video

I make that roughly one set of lights every 235 metres. I cant be bothered to work it out in imperial.