Mumford & Sons song formula is as follows:

I’m really feeling a bit cheesed off…AND I’VE GOT A BANJO!

Living on the south coast I consider anything north of Crawley to be “the North”

Failing that I follow Stuart Maconie’s sage advice:  the north begins at Crewe station, beyond which point the geology becomes harder, the accents flatter and the climate wilder. And the surface of the M6 turns from tarmac to cobbles

Similar issues on my T129 during the winter so I run a 2.0 Bontrager XRMud Team Issue…works a treat.

Iets just look at the Parties recent records:

Labour Party: 2nd Gulf War and Afghanistan,

Conservatives: Brexit

LibDems: Tuition fees

Looking at it now its obviously the LibDems have done the most damage.

er…

Gender Neutral and the person and/or persons in charge of the Universe

FTFY

Surely the “Fun-sized” Mars bar should be replaced with the “Whole-gamut-of-emotions” MarsBar?

Or possibly: “Potentially moderately entertaining in a limited way but it really depends on the circumstances and how you are feeling at that particular point in time however please be assured that we are are not making assumptions about your current emotional state and no offence should be taken” MarsBar…although that probably means the packaging alone will be about 80cms long.

Hmm, looks like the bike has been photographed sitting in a Tracey Emin art installation…

And don’t forget Currywurst mit Pommes 🙂

Leaves on lines has been an issue for as long as I can remember. Having witnessed a large steam locomotive spinning its wheels on wet/greasy track I can testify that this isn’t just an issue for modern trains.

The black ice analogy is pretty accurate: its only cold water isn’t it? 🙂

Go for it and find out.

From prior experience having lived and worked in Germany and Italy in the past as well as having worked in France a bit, moving abroad always appears first to be a bigger and scarier move than it really is.

Learning a foreign language is way easier if you actually live in the country in question and need to converse. Red tape and bureaucracy is everywhere and language barriers tend to cause issues but you can get around these with patience: If in any doubt, get help from someone who is a native speaker or an experienced ex-pat.

Major and important piece of advice: Rent out your flat here, don’t fully sell up unless you are totally sure you aren’t coming back

Oh, and if you do go, make sure you don’t mind lots of sofa surfers suddenly appearing on your doorstep asking for a free local ride guide and, as its you, some free samples or your latest alcoholic creations 😉

More than enough to keep you occupied for a few days, for example:

Afternoon ride at Pennydd or the Wall

Full day on W2 or a W2-Blade mash-up.

Morning ride on Pennydd, session Blue Scar a couple of times or head up to the Bike Park.

Afan Lodge is about as bike friendly as you can get, good food and top breakfasts too, oh, and try the Brecon Whiskey….its rather good 🙂

South Downs bikes in Storrington do a shop ride, first Wednesday of each month starting at 6:30pm.

Quest Adventure in Worthing do shop rides on Thursday evenings again starting at 6:30pm, they also do beer and pizza rides as well 🙂

Aldi’s restretto and lungo nespresso pods, currently going for £1:60 for 10

Fully agree with whoever mentioned the spill the beans coffee porter…its really good (made by Brains Brewery btw)

The ciabattas are good too

The things to avoid or be careful off is the bags of salad which appear to have a shelf life that can be measured in minutes, their equivalent of Soreen loaf is somewhat inedible and the Muller-Lite clone yoghurts which were quite frankly horrible (and the trauma of that experience hasn’t worn off yet meaning I haven’t tried the Skyr stuff yet)

Another Moto G6 here, got mine off Amazon with the special edition 64Gb version for £230

No issues and it works fine for everything that I want it to do, fingerprint reader, compas, NFC and USB C turbo charger is really useful too.  Only downside is the lack of full waterproofing that my old MotoG3 had.

“Going Solo” by Roald Dahl.

Starts with him traveling to Africa in 1938 to work for Shell, joining the RAF in 1939 and learning to fly Tiger Moths in Kenya, then Gloucester Gladiators before moving onto, well, actually being thrown pretty much into the deep end,  flying Hurricanes in combat in Greece…

“way to go Dave how to win friends and influence people”

Hmm, odd that, especially after a year or so of pretty much having his personal and professional reputation permanently tarnished, the team being turned from gold standard to public enemy #1 courtesy of a surprisingly well timed data hack, some rather selective bits of sensationlist journalism that desperately searched for a smoking gun but instead only found their brothers best mates’, ex-girfiends dog walker who said they had noticed the faintest whiff of something that could have been smoke, a govt enquiry into sexism in sport that appeared to go, lets face it, quite a bit off piste, a leak from a what was supposed to be a confidential UCI enquiry (dont get me started about the difference between an AAF and a failed drugs test), a true humdinger ride in the Giro now under suspicion (it was either a mix of recce’ing the stage, luck, tactics and everyone else forgetting to race at the top of the climb or invisble jet engines powered by mind expanding psychadelic love drugs and Tesla model S Batteries designed by Lord Lucan hidden inside Froomey’s legs ) and then spending a happy couple of weeks being spat at you’d honestly think Sir Dave would simply see the funny side of it.

Sorry, been reading the comments section of Cycling News a bit too much and needed to vent 🙂

Still, on the bright side, G’s post-race interviews are genuinely refreshing :” Can we go to Paris now?” and I’m dearly hoping that Sagan will do the entire TTT pulling a no-hands wheelie while singing a medley of hits from Grease.

Yes,  Aeffect cranks will work with an an XT bottom bracket. Just remember that if you already use the non-driveside crank axle spacers you will need to reuse them on the new bottom bracket.

Worlds best GC rider wins GC…world stunned.

The online comments section over on cycling news is currently melting into a large pool of vitriol ( the section on the motor doping tests at the Giro yesterday is particularly hilarious)

Got a Moto g6 from Amazon with the memory upgrade which is very much worthwhile. It’s a good phone, camera has a little bit of lag under certain circumstances ( not a major problem TBH) but picture quality is pretty good.

Ah yes, my old design job…

I think we should now be pretty close to the point the new auto lights-on legislation kicks in…a lot of cars now have dusk sensors that automatically turn on the lights and this is going to be (or is now) a standard fit on all new cars.

A lot of the complaints about LED DRLs are pretty much revolving around a general psychology regarding how you perceive lights on on a car, a great deal of it tends to suggest aggression especially if they are thin long blade shapes… Yes Audis are pretty much the main culprit here ( btw I know their chief lighting designer too…no, you can’t have his phone number or email to complain directly…)

The thing is, when you look at the crash data and the issue of accidents especially at junctions when vehicles have pulled out into traffic that they haven’t seen, it makes a pretty compelling case for DRLs .

Spooky_b329, just for your info my use of a load of vulcanising solution (blue) , a normal inner tube repair patch, a piece of gorilla tape and a some choice swear words  that fixed my slashed sidewall at CwmCarn is still holding… 😉

Awesome, great to be able to pan the view around too 🙂

Did anyone else watch that and go ” ‘been cycling there…and there…and there…and…” ?

Its defo. a 1978 Celica ( rare for that time) : shape of rear screen/tailgate and C pillar is the giveaway plus the shape of the waistline. It’s got small bumpers as only the US ones had big plastic bumpers due to federal crash test legislation ( that’s the reason later MG BGT’s had them too… The MG convertibles had ridiculous huge roll hoops for the same reason)

Abstract pretty much sums the film up. I really liked Annihilation, feeling-wise it reminded me a bit of Under the Skin (which is far more disturbing).

Loved the visual style and sound design which would have both had more effect in a cinema plus a very subtle storyline with absolutely no “Basil-Exposition” moments. Some standout elements were the exploded/altered bodies, the trees/plants, the shadow-Link scene (one for the Zelda-Ocarina of time fans) and, finally, Natalie Portman’s tatoo was seen on at least one of the other members of her team (but I didnt notice it was also on the pool body…hmm, must rewatch).

Matt Guthmiller, he flies a single engined Beechcraft Banshee plane around the US and eats food….he also joined two others to fly a light aircraft across the Atlantic from Boston to Salzburg ( includes how to go to the loo in a tiny plane while wearing an artic ocean survival suit…)

About 2 years, going on 10, of denial for me led to an appointment with the clippers last year and the Barber doing his best “‘ya sure?” double check.

My advice: Be brave, go to the barbers and ask for no.1 on the sides and no. 2 on top as its gives you the hope that there is some length up top to play with.

Advantages: 5mins in-out at the barbers,…simples (not resorted to my own set of clippers yet but thats coming) Washing your hair becomes a very speedy process, you use miniscule amounts of shampoo thereby saving money, the planet and the baby robins, you no longer need to bother with “product”, you can kiss helmet hair goodbye ( and if you start to notice helmet hair post-ride then you know its time for the clippers/barbers again), you look younger. My wife likes the stubble thing (or perhaps she’s rubbing my head for luck?)

Disadvantages: well, the only two I’ve noticed are firstly a lack of insulation up top leading to sartorial debates ( I now know I look good in a bowler hat),  and secondly the fact I now seem to get engaged in weird street conversations with hitherto unknown scallies: eg: ‘”ere mate, can you tell me where the law courts are? I’m late for an appointment…” and “can I borrow your phone, I need to call the open prison and tell them I’ll be late…”

Er….

Bryan Adams.

But not “Everything I do I do it for you” obviously, I do have some standards

Contained much Gratuitous Subaru Sideways Action whilst doing the Harlem Shuffle 🙂

Cafall was really good about a week ago when I was at CwmCarn. The descent along Heartbreak ridge and Riddler transported me back about 27 years to when I used to ride the, ahem, cheeky trails around Rudry valley, Draethen and Ruperra on my beloved Spesh Hardrock….sigh.

Can’t speak for Montreal but Toronto is good fun, I was surprised as it seems to have a bit of a reputation (unfairly) as being a bit dull.

I can’t recommend Niagara Falls enough as it is truly spectacular but don’t bother with staying in the town itself unless you like slightly old amusement arcades and cheesy casinos. If you want to stay in the area a far better bet is Niagara on the lake: small town, very pretty, nice hotels and restaurants plus a lot of the wineries are very close too.

Before anyone gets carried away, that Stratos is from about 10-12 years back and they only built one. It looked really good in the flesh though, not a direct copy but a very good homage that respected the original with some very good new ideas too. Lots of issues came up with using a Ferarri as a doner car as it wasn’t a Lancia project and as such they didn’t have permission to use the drivetrain for production so only one running prototype was built.

Old Stratos’s (strati?) are cool but personally I prefer the Pininfarina 512 Modulo…I spent about 18 very tough but happy months working on secondment at Pininfarina from 2003-2005 and got to look at (drool over) the original car every day 🙂

Pininfarina is now owned by Mahindra and they don’t get to design Ferarris any more…

Don’t bother with the bleed screw, Just use a big screwdriver between the pads.

Surrounded by a late 50’s/early 60’s housing estate on all sides but to the north a view of Highdown hill, with Blackpatch hill and the South Downs just visible off in the distance

Oh felicity, felicity,
You fill me with electricity,
But that doesn’t mean you are shocking,
oh no…
You are nice,
Like sugar and spice,
Just like a proper girly ought to be,
Even though I’m sure you have radical views on the subject of equal opportunities…

(People’s poet, we salute you)

Lance being able to “sense” his TR7 returning home, Cycling proficiency badges, connect4 and KerPlunk.

Heaven 🙂

1 hour for a short haul, 2 hours for a long haul, never in a million years for Ryanair.

About 3 years back I did manage 11minutes for an EasyJet flight from Gatwick to Geneva…admittedly it was paperless tickets online check in , hand luggage only and a flat sprint across the airport from security (with the now de rigeur shoes off and a quick wham-bam-thank-you-man shake down) to the far side of the south terminal gate . I wasn’t last on board the plane either…

Magic markers?

No, not since college but I do use Copic markers…far better quality and a much better colour range. However I was delighted when Sketchbook Pro started to offer a full range of Copic markers in electronic from.

Looking forwards to leading a couple of manual sketching design workshops at the V&A next week, using real old school style pencils! 🙂

A lot of these autonomous systems are still in deep development and governments are currently looking to understand what kind of legislation is required before members of the public are allowed to regularly use them.

The hypothetical “choose who to kill/save” idea is a bit of a stretch. The vast majority of vehicle drivers fail to go through this process in the event of a crash and most crashes are due to some level of pilot error on the part of one or more of the people involved; in other words someone either doesn’t react in time or does something stupid and someone else doesn’t, or cannot, react in time to this. This is one reason why insurance companies have gone from being the most vocal opponents of Autonomy to being an initially cautious and then more active supporter of it.

Interesting point about the Google cars in the US. They have been involved in (very few) crashes but these have with one or two exceptions been due to be driven cars driving into them. Autonomous cars tend to er on the side of caution, something that people don’t necessarily do…there have been road rage style crashes where drivers have been frustrated by an autonomous car being driven slower( slightly under speed limit,) and then reacted against this!

Yesterdays post-Aldi discussion was trying to work out the difference between the chopped Pancetta and chopped Lardons, the bargain value of a set of 3 wood saws and whether I should have bought some axes.

Sometimes the shop feels like Waitrose preparing for a zombie apocalypse.

Honda H-RV : you can flip up the rear seats and have space to carry two bikes