Naked-eye visible in Worthing area tonight in spite of some cloud too at the moment

Back when I was studying in Cardiff in the last 80s, Students in the street behind where we lived got stoned and one (who was doing the ceramics course at our art college) having thought he was still in college built a rudimentary kiln in his upstairs bedroom and proceeded to fire a load of handmade pots. on the plus side there was lots of heat but it did burn a hole in the carpet, oh and the floor …The landlord wasn’t that impressed, the pots didn’t really work either.

OP, decent oil radiator is the way to go plus, draught excluders and a load of bubblewrap on the window, possibly check the loft insulation and if its lacking, have a quiet work with the Landlord. And as others have said, wait till early-mid November when common sense re. central heating (or hypothermia) kicks in

Any ring pulls? Specifically from a can of Quattro, circa 1982…

OP a 3 year old  iD3 with 40000 miles on the clock is not high milage. TBH thats barely run in.

Remember that there is no engine, gearbox, clutch etc that need regular service or can be gorillas by bad driving, just an inverter, motor and reduction box (all sealed for life components). AL should be fine providing the car hasn’t been doing burnouts repeatedly and frankly you’d know this as the tyres would be worn out.

Check the brake pads, (liable to be fine as most EV braking is done with regen). I think the expectation is the front pads last to over 50k miles, rear brakes are drums but again are pretty much bomb proof. Suspension should be fine, the whole EV weight issue thing is really just BS tbh, the Id4 has an uprated rear suspension to handle this.

Battery will need a health check but generally just check the projected range at full charge as this will also show the way the car has been driven but again, the VW batteries are pretty damn tough (good BMS system) so should be fine.

My boss has an Id4 with similar age/milage and its had zero issues. the car feels like newt and is incredibly smooth and quiet to drive.

The reviewer forgot to mention the resulting punch up, kebab, the inadvisable second drink, subsequent passing out, waking up on a bench on a bleak, empty station concourse somewhere in the north of England at 2.47 am on a Wednesday with a vague recollection of attempting to illigally gain access to a live recording of PopmasterTV and challenging Ken Bruce to a duel, only to be manhandled away by security while tearfully screaming that he ruined Radio 2 forever and that he should return immediately if only for the sake of the eternal spirit of Teryy Wogan who shall rise again, then later falling into a somewhat maudlin introspective and careful re-evaulation of life choices while spending the next week trying to get the horrible taste out of their mouth.

Buckfastleigh is famed for the Steam Railway, The Butterfly Farm, The Otter Sanctuary (Ahhhh, theyre so cute…) and a drink that frankly is like WKD blended with Ketamine, Domestos and undiluted Ribena.

Visible down on the south coast in Worthing….blimey! Never thought I’d see this without having to head far north so very chuffed.  Can’t upload pics to STW tho…

OP the binge drinking card forgets “the use of an answerphone”  (wow, its like the modern age…), and as many have mentioned: “Jim wears slacks and a sports jacket.”

I was wondering about an A Team drinking game where you had to have a drink every time they shot at the bad guys using their chrome plated AK47’s with at least one of the group (Face? Murdoch?)  shooting from the open sunroof of an APC built, via a montage from a stretch limo, some angle iron, drainpipes and some oxyacetylene tanks  natch,  and didn’t actually hit any of them. Frankly I don’t think my liver would be able to cope though.

Farage!

Must include “we’re only making plans for Nigel”

At least they actually showed Alan Titchmarsh  on TV. I heard that Monty Don is banned in NK after touting some extremely radical ideas on herbaceous perrenials and Percy Thrower has been proclaimed as a highly subversive and dangerous influence on the youth that must be repelled by the everlasting revolution.

Moved to Variofocals a few years back after faffing around with reading and distance glasses plus daily disposable contacts for cycling. I now have 3 pairs (blimey) of Varifocals: one pair for all daily use, a pair or variofocal sunglesses (fixed tint, really for summer outdoors and driving) and another pair (Rad8’s) specifically for cycling which have stronger polycarbonate frames and transition lenses. The variofocal cycling glasses are a bit of a revelation TBH and work well off the bike too.

The outer edges will need to be supported/rivnutted in some way otherwise it may deflect downwards.
You could make a sacrificial front edge to the flat floor. TBH the best/cheapest way to do this is make it out of machined and/or routed marine plywood as you can get a nice rounded edge on it

FWIW and speaking from experience with a track car using an aero floor, Id suggest not bothering with carbon/kevlar on something that will likely look terrible after its first outing vs speedhumps, kerbs or potholes, instead you could make the whole part from marine plywood (its both pretty strong and reasonably lightweight) with a decent painted finish and assume its going to get chewed up so make it easy and cheap to repair or replace.

Not quite a knife but a true story: On a crowded tube train a few years back I felt something banging repeatedly into my back (no sniggering please) like a piece of wooden pipe (again, I said no sniggering…). On turning around to ask the person behind me if they would mind stopping hitting me I was faced with a slightly shorter person in sort of Ninja-ish gear (sort of dark clothing, mask etc.)  with his back to me. Very poker faced. I noted that he was carrying on his back a katana/shortsword in a bamboo sword sheath in a small backpack so it was sticking out of the top.

Naturally I considered my options and decided that being british and saying”excuse me my good man, would you awfully mind not banging into me with your katana/short sword because its very rude” might not quite get the result I wanted. I’ve seen that scene in the Nightclub in Kill Bill part 1 and I guess, from others reactions, so had everyone else around me: It was the London Underground so obviously nobody else said anything and studously avoided all eye contact. Actually thinking back I dont think that there was anyone saying anything at all…Anyway, I got out at the next stop, which, as luck would have it actually was my stop. In spite of it being rush hour there were no staff around so I might have exited the station a tad faster than normal while comtemplating that the whole “See it, Say it, Sorted” idea has some practical limitations.

PS I also have a phobia about Knives and Sharp Objects in general so I view my reaction to the above as being completely rational.

Oh, and back on topic:I just checked my Topeak Alien Mk1 with its little folding blade thingy and its about 1in long but does lock in place along with the bottle opener, flathead screwdriver,  spanners and spoke keys, is that illegal to carry in my camelback?

Mk2’s are pretty tough and an un-ragged very low milage one would be a decent buy if its in good nick and they’ll do 50mpg+ (or quite a bit more if you are gentle with them) .   The only thing to check would be the hybrid battery: Toyota dealers do a Hybrid health check for this reason https://mag.toyota.co.uk/toyota-hybrid-health-check/

While a nice low milage one wouldnt be proper bangernomics per se, look past the slight percieved dullness of the mk2 and instead consider that all those Hollywood A-Listers and Uber drivers cant be wrong and realise they do make a canny buy:shttps://www.autocar.co.uk/opinion/used-cars/bangernomics-best-buys-toyota-prius

OP its a long and slippery slope, wait till you try astrophotography:  you’ll soon be looking at tracking drives, bodging a webcam onto the eyepiece mounts and downloading a copy of Registax to process the results….or just go modern and use a smartphone camera on a super long exposure setting with the telescope: https://www.astronomy.com/observing/capture-the-cosmos-with-your-smartphone/

Just been rewatching Lockwood and Co on Netflix and I can heartily recommend it if you want a fun, intelligent, alt history ghost hunting/supernatural series that isn’t set in the US.  Still can’t understand why it was cancelled after just one season with a cliffhanger ending too (booooo!) as its very good indeed: Seriously good lead cast, great story, characters you care about, Souxie and Banshees, The cure etc. soundtrack… so naturally ripe for culling after just one season .  However have just read that Joe Cornish has been lined up to direct Snow Crash (based on the Neal Stephenson cyber punk novel) so all may not yet be lost.

Oh and just to add to all the comments about Fargo season 5. Its just stunningly good. 

Used it last year to go from London to Glasgow and back to do the Dunoon Dirt Dash with one of my riding buddies. Didn’t bother with the seated option  as the reviews are very negative but found the cabin pretty good.

As others have said, book a cabin in the middle of the coach (not above the bogies), This is important as the ride is a bit bumpy on parts of the route (for some reason the approach to Preston seemed a bit choppy) .

The club car can get crowded so get there early/book a table, food is small portions but pretty good, prices are not stupid unless you decide to go for whiskies etc and even then its not too bad. The breakfast in a bag option that is delivered to your cabin is basic but ok

The train is very clean and well presented ( I have Southern Trains/Thameslink and a long ago  trip across Europe on a fresh/iltailian sleeper train to compare to.

The beds are narrow but surprisingly comfortable, room temperature is fine. I did sleep ok, woke up a few times though but I reckon that is got about 6ish hrs during an 8 hr journey. TBH the only real  issues were not having a long enough USB cable to charge my phone with ( because I was travelling light) and the Shower on the return journey where we got a club cabin was only warm, not hot (but frankly as I had been out gravel riding for a long weekend it still felt like a luxury to be able to get clean)

Overall, I liked it. I’m going to use the sleeper to go to Edinburgh in the spring

Oh, and taking your bike on the sleeper is brill. Bikes go in a nice big secure rack  (room for 6-8 bikes in there) that is locked for the duration of the journey.

Overall its not the Orient Express but getting on a train last thing at night in Euston, sleeping in a proper bed and then getting up first thing in the morning , having breakfast then getting off the train in Glasgow and going cycling is a proper luxury 🙂

I’ve had a set of Hunt 4 seasons on my gravel bike for the past year and a bit. Except for the disc adaptors very occasionally needing tightening up (note to self, use threadlock…) and after about 2000kms of South Downs/KAW/Dunoon Dirt Dash on and off-road abuse the rear needed a slight truing back in September, but otherwise,  no complaints. Also the fact that Hunt are based in Partridge Green (about 15miles from me) means anything serious requiring sending  back to the manufacturer would be easy to sort out.

Rather enjoyed the latest season of Bosch:Legacy (hidden on Amazon Freevee) . Not quite at the level of the last few seasons of Bosch but close enough and  always good to see some of the old/retired cops including Barrel and Crate still making an appearance.

The Devils Hour on Amazon Prime was very good indeed (bit a surprise find)

“Bodies” on Netflix was good fun, even if could get a bit hammy at times.

Agree with others that the real disappointment this year has been the Fall of the House of Usher…got three episodes in and gave up after having to endure the “Diet Eyes Wide Shut” episode, apparently it does get better from episode 4 onwards but frankly the damage was done and I was left thinking “oh, so they all die. Good”

Anyone tried Hive? Its not strictly a board game as it involves laying tiles  but its very good, deceptively simple and gets very tactical when you get into it.

Gubs, card game, has a nice random element that can knock you back score-wise and reverse fortunes very quickly

Schotten Totten is also good fun.

As someone earlier mentioned, Seven Wonders is very good (I keep losing to my wife once she worked out my core tactic that I would aim for science victories)

hmm, two vessels you say? Well then, I’d go for:

Ultimate ship the first.

Ultimate ship the second

And, frankly, there is a very rich vein of other culture ship names to mine for this one

I took a punt on a the Lifeline TT-01 magnetic turbo trainer for the somewhat incredible price of £14.99. Ended up paying £16.89 (after doing the Extra 10 thing)  as its a big, heavy box so some additional postage was required.

Ordered Monday, arrived yesterday. All looks good, seems to work well and as I already have a cadence/speed sensor on the road bike and a spare ANT+ USB dongle, it looks like a budget winter Zwift setup beckons.

OP, have a look at this review of an original  gen1 Nissan Leaf (its Robert Llewllyn’s  own one) reviewed after owning it for 10 years. Whilst showing its age, it definitely didn’t have just 20miles of range…https://youtu.be/2qPF11PmP8k

Shortly after that video was done he did the rather cool thing and got the battery replaced for a 40kWh one, it made quite a big difference…https://youtu.be/FVxEOETTWnQ

Go for a later gen 1 with the type2 connector (still CHADEMO though) , bigger battery (30kWh or above)  and you’d have a really solid little runabout.

OP perhaps it would be better if they did location specific motivational messages so we’d get “So what?” “Hmmm…” ”   you shouldn’t have really bothered today” ” you may dress like him but you ‘aint no Steve Peat” or ” Awesome work! 7 grand spent on a trick e-bike so you cycled almost 3 miles and gained 17m of altitude to go for a coffee, well done you!”

:0)

A couple of weeks back you would have been fine but we’re in the SDW rainy season (!) now so as others have mentioned,  the green chalk is making a comeback: worst point tend be the chalk descents around Harting Down (remember someone coming a cropper there on one of the Max Exposure SDW night rides years back)  plus a few of the ploughed field crossings will be getting “interesting” (such as the run down to Upwaltham)  and grass climbs will be a bit gloopy as well.

Another vote for Namsan Mountain, if time pressed you can cable car up and walk down or vice versa.

Itaewon market is always worth seeing. The new park at Cheonggyecheon Stream didn’t exist when I went (it was a very busy elevated motorway over a stream/ditch) but apparently is well worth a visit.

You could go to the DMZ too, depressing and weird in equal measure

Been following this thread for a few days as well as hearing some things from mates in the bike trade. Key thing at the moment (just checked) is that both CRC/Wiggle are still trading so would still be solvent(no big warning messages sent out anywhere yet as far as I can see) , all of the issues at the moment seem to be at the very top level/parent company Signa Sports United.

Looking at the CW article on this, the issue at present appears to be  that SSU has (had) a holding company above it  that was providing financing/liquidity and this agreement was terminated. Could mean quite a few things but the most likely thing right now is that SSU has to seek urgent refinancing, restructuring and/or start selling off or closing parts of its business.  IIRC SSU is also a German company so likely a lot of legal stuff going on there too (just note that German corporate business/bankruptcy/closure laws take effect and these are potentially a bit different to the UK law).

My own random guess here (and I really dont know anything except for previously working in two companies that went into bankruptcy/receivership…not fun) would be that CRC/Wiggle, being an established very large commercial operation that has shown it can run e-commerce pretty effectively and profitably (recent issues excepted), creating cashflow and shareholder value (thats the key here)   may get spun off/sold on as a going concern/undergo some form of MBO/restructured or something else before anyone would consider moving to a full close down.

TBH its way more likely to be a petrol or diesel fire : A week back I drove past the remnants of a new-ishdiesel Merc that went bang and was still being dampened down by the fire brigade. Such things tend to be caused by either oil or fuel leaking onto a hot Turbo or catalytic converter from a worn linkage or broken pipe. A lot of the FUD (Fear, Uncertanty and Doubt) regarding EV catching fire is from people who ignore all of the “normal” car fires that dont make the news.

Anyway, lots of cars in a semi-enclosed space such as a multi storey car park will make for a very big fire.  Consider the amount of Diesel, Petrol, Oil, Brake fluid, plastics,Rubber and Aluminium that are present in several hundred vehicles that will burn very intensively. Open sides on the car park means there is a lot of airflow too. Its no wonder the structure colapsed the heat from all of the fuel/oil/platics fire would start to melt the steelwork in the carpark (so nothing to do with the weight of all of the vehicles)

Been playing this for ages and I’m still finding more and more creative and devious ways to get the “I’m tired and need to reach my friend” Koroks to their destination…

While attaching them to the top of a very,very tall buggy and driving through a forest/low bridges, fixing them to the underside of boat/log and heading over a waterfall or, possibly to a the wheels of fire breathing bot (think Mad Max: Fury Road comes to Hyrule) all are entertaining, I find that the simplest solution is still the best so its glue ’em to a rocket and fire it in the general direction of the far off smoke signal. That fact that they still thank you afterwards and give you two korok seeds for your trouble makes this doubly rewarding.

Oh,  and the rest of the game is awesome too.

Went cycling with @spooky_b329 and ended up at some kind of wierd cheese tasting event in a barn next to a loch

Time Atacs, Spesh MTB shoes (same as for my full susser and singlespeed)

OP: tbh use whever works for you.

Been running a set of Hunt 29er XC Wides for the last three years now. Still running tight and true with no dings, theyre nice and light, and seem plenty strong enough for general off road and trail centre duties, Reliablity has been good:  one bearing needed changing  (easy job) a year back.

My only gripe has been the axle is held in place by the non driveside endcap being pressed in and held in palce by friction, not a bolt or nut so the complete axle, freehub and cassette will occasionally pop out when the wheel is removed from the bike. An easy fix but a bit annoying as Hope hubs seem to manage to do this so it works reliably.

Still reckon theyre a bargain (I bought a set of Gravel Wides too which are very good) but hey, what do I know.

Some Typhoons out over the north sea plus there are a couple of Draken international L159’s flying around off the east coast near Newcastle/Hartlepool plus a Dassault Falcon out near Middlesbrough. All very normal as Draken (formerly known as Cobham) are flying combat training agressor flights against the RAF and they’re currently based out of Teeside airport.

Oh, and theres an RAF A330 tanker off the west coast of scotland too.

Plus an RAF Rivet Joint out over the North Sea…

Flightradar is very useful BTW

The way to look at it is is that the battery enhances the overal efficiency and capacity of a solar PV system.  Even with a moderate solar instal you are unlikely to be able to use all the power you are generating, the energy is worth more to you than sellling to the grid and, crucially, solar PV can only generate power during daylight. Our basic system is a 3,6 kWh solar panel system with a 3kWh battery (Pylontech). The battery cost about £1100-£1200 extra as part of the system install but means that during most of the summer our energy from gid requirement is minimal: a full battery means we can run the house on it from sunset to sunrise, and during the winter we can hang on to any (usually some of) energy that is generated during the day and use it in the evening.

Basicaly our PV system alone gives about 50% of the power we need across the year , the Battery pushes this figure up to 65-70% of the electricity we need per year,  in the summer its closing on 100%. I’m buying another battery soon as this will reduce our electricity from grid requirement further still and should improve things through the winter.

As for the ROI, if you want to do that, fine (I dont as it view this as a sunk cost) , but for us we saw an immediate and frankly, dramatic drop in our electricity bill.  The price rise last autumn meant that the break even point reduced from about 8-10yrs to about 6…. My SEG (selling excess solar generated power to grid) tarrif has been tripled recently so I’m now earning/saving about £250ish per year from that but even so, its still more worthwhile to store and use the power that I’m generating that sell to grid. Companies like Octopus will pay you more and do smart tarrifs too.

So OP in answer to your question, if you can afford it then yes, yes it really really does add up.

A few years back I got sufficiently pi$$ed off with cold callers repeatedly phoning me and asking me about my “accident” that I ended up explaining that no, I had not been in an accident but,  according to my parents, I was caused by one.

Apparently you can’t claim on insurance for that.

OP: For a 12 yr old then Blue Scar at Afan (the core blue graded trail) would be perfect as its fun and flowing but challenging enough to feel like you’re riding at your limit. Most of the climbing is on easy single track/fireroad and the final descent is an absolute corker, plus you can loop it several times.

TBH Blue scar for anyone who loves riding is perfect unless you are fully tooled up and skilled for some serious DH

You can do most of Pennydd (red graded) and detour to the Blue Scar descent for a fun 90-120mins ride.

Just a quick PSA: I know most posters on this thread use Octopus Flux but for those who don’t, British Gas (yeah, go on, judge me…) sent me an email last night explaining that they were changing their SEG tariff for their customers (so you need to be a British Gas customer using their SEG scheme) to Export and Earn plus at 15p per kWh exported with immediate effect.

This appears to now match the basic OVO customer and Octopus fixed schemes.

Some quick calculations last night with my 3.6kWh solar install plus 3kWh battery  and this looks like it should just about cover the both the standing charge and the costs of importing power from the grid for the coming year. I don’t get hung up on the “payback period/return on investment” thing but the increased savings now being made have reduced this significantly.

My advice to anyone thinking of fitting solar panels is this: if you can afford to, and if you have the space, then even for a modest system with a few kWh of storage its a complete no brainer, just do it.

re. Uxbridge (bearing in mind our company head office is in South Ruislip), the ULEZ expansion is viewed as being something that would greatly affect peoples wallets: fines for driving the car you own, can’t afford to replace the car with a horrifically expensive EV that damages roads, carparks, kills baby Robbins etc and by the way their not really that green at all and their batteries explode and catch fire dontchaknow cos I read it in the papers and oh yes pollution is bad but what about the cost of living?

Its basic politics: A  sound, rational environmental policy coming up against emotional counter-arguments that has (just) managed to trump a national trend at the polls. The interesting thing will be what happens at the general election next year where the local issues/arguments get overtaken by national ones?

OP, if you already own a Full Susser, are used to riding road bikes and are looking for something that can do road and trail and everything in-between then a gravel bike is a good option. A decent, modern HT plus a reasonably skilled/experienced rider will be able to handle a lot of what the FullSusser can do but A decent modern gravel bike can do a lot of what a modern hardtail can do, just minus the suspension forks, hence the cries of “its a late 80’s mountain bike” although I think a lot of people are perhaps viewing those bikes through rose-tinted spectacles (or possibly varifocals as they forget things like modern geometry, 29in wheels, disc brakes, decent gears, Tubeless tyres etc etc.

Would I ride a gravel bike around a trailer centre? Hmm… well I wouldn’t mind trying something like Blue Scar at Afan (now thats got me thinking…)  but Pennydd, the Wall, Skyline etc? No way. I’d happily ride anything there on a Hardtail but Id want to be on a full susser as I am both old and a wimp.

As for exact location the weird, blurry, ill-defined boundary that separates a modern Hardtail from a Modern Gravel bike, who knows? TBH, just try a gravel bike, see if you like it.

Ive been using a Wacom Intuos 3 (slightly larger than A4 drawing area)for about 10-12 years, they’re bombproof and, until the Cintiq came along, were  pretty much de facto standard for the design industry.

If you’re using a desktopPC with a decent sized screen ( or a monitor with your laptop) and have enough clear space on your desk they work very well to the point that I’ve never felt the need to get a Cintiq or similar for my home office.

TBH get the largest you can afford: for general photoshop/sketchbook duties an A5 sized drawing area is the bare minimum for decent work. Anything smaller will be very limiting indeed. Wacom also sell refurbished tablets on their website so might be worth a look.

Oh and try Autodesk Sketchbook, its free and far, far better than any other 2D sketching software out there. You can also both read and save out psd (photoshop) files on it too.

Unless the car was very recently, and obviously, say, launched skywards off a speed hump at 80mph, the dealer claiming subframe collapse on a car they have just sold is “corrosion” is seriously dodgy, would appear on a pre-sale workshop check so the garage probably (ie should..) know this and sounds like they are trying it on.

As far as I can tell for the sale of good act , this happening so soon means the vehicle was not fit for sale so the dealer is at fault.

Nothing at all to do with the MOT, its up to the dealer to be certain that they are selling something that is legit and will work:

Go to CAB and/or trading standards chasing a refund or no cost repair.