As my brother and sister have rates higher than mine I’ve offered to take some of their debt and put into onto mine – easy as mine’s an offset but I don’t think theirs are flexible enough unfortunately.

Not sure how clever it is but stumpjumper is a nice name.

Well mine was the only rate I could see on their web site at the time so don’t know if they had others available; I was a contractor at the time but the amount borrowed was relatively small compared to the property value. I had an arrangement fee but that wasn’t too bad.

Try humping a snow woman; it ain’t all that great….

They spent £660k on the build I think? That’s not a lot of house for the money given that the land was already owned which is mostly a significant chunk of a houses’s value.

Stoner – when did you get that rate? Mine was the best I could get 2 years ago.

My Woolwich offset mortgage is BR+0.49% and they’ve carried on dropping so far; it’s so low that there are Cash ISA’s paying better rates so am putting money into them.

sootyandjim – why’s one of those chaps different from all the rest?

Just over 30 lbs with biggish wheels/tyres:

I did an audax on a cx bike with slicks

Clearly inappropriate

Didn’t Sl2000 do the Dragon Ride on London Lady’s CX bike and come about 70th out of 1000+?

I’ve been with a few:

Freeride Spain had best trails, cheapish but accomodation and local town poor and far from airport.

Seasonally Unadjusted had Ok accomodation but by railway line and I didn’t sleep as much as I’d have liked, trails fine but spoilt by some slow riders joining in for a few days so we only rode 1/2 what we should have done. I won’t go back but I was probably just unlucky.

Sierra Cycling great accomodation and local town though go off season for cooler climate and lack of tourists. Riding wasn’t the best but OK and I understand they do more demanding stuff these days. I’ve been twice and might go again.

This reminds me of an experience my Mum had when she was working at the CAB about 10 years ago. A English grad came in complaining that her job paid £12k and asking what benefits she’d get if she resigned – she said she was worth more than £12k. Well my Mum wasn’t impressed! I wasn’t on much more than that back then and having business/IT I think I probably had more employable skills – not that I’m suggesting I’m was ‘worth’ more of course!

I have a light Ti V braked hardtail for summer use. The great thing is that if you bide your time you can get the v brake bits cheaply. I got some Avid Ti brakes from here and have just got some DT ceramic rims on DT240s hubs from here too. The Ti v brake frame (Handsome Dog) came from Ebay for £150 which would no doubt have been more if disc ready. All looks very nice.

it’s th*tcher’s fault

I was a student for the last year of no loan and the 1st year with a loan. As I understand it the plan back then was to always have a grant with a loan topping it up but that changed when Tony came along. Then fees were introduced. ‘Anything you can do I can do better…..’

Has any body published anything to show if the country has benefited from all these extra graduates? Or even individuals – has average income increased for people in their 20s?

but I feel it’s never going to be read by anyone religious as it’s too easily dismissed.

Well religious people do read it but Dawkins seems to aim it at agnostics as a way of pushing them into atheism – failed with me. I found it lacked the academic feel I hoped and seemed more ‘bloke down pub’ level at times. I suppose he was just trying to get a best seller and get lots of commited atheists to buy it so they can agree with him….

i still maintain that in 2000 years scientology or something similar will be the dominant global religion

and christianity, hinduism, islam, judaism, whateva will have fallen by the wayside like so many other ancient religions

But Judaism is pretty old isn’t it? Christianity stemmed from that so they’ve lasted pretty well so far.

it’s more obvious to me that even clever people can be delusional :o)

Well maybe but would they should delusion in other areas? Would they be deemed ‘clever’? Well I dunno, but I know some very bright Christians and I struggle with what’s really going on there.

“I find the business of religion profoundly interesting. But it does mystify me that otherwise intelligent people take it seriously”

The obvious answer would seem to be that there’s something in it!

Guilt and empathy are curious things. If I see you get run over I feel empathy, if I did it I feel guilt! But apparently care less and even would enjoy causing you the pain – e.g. psycopaths. My chickens, as with many animals, wouldn’t care if another chicken was killed and might even tuck into the free meal. Other animals seem to care – such as our old family dog who semeed to want to console my Mother when she was upset one time.

Why should anyone care about anyone else? I suppose it helps with life as we bond with others and life is improved in various ways; but some seems to be truly altruistic. It’s all a bit strange, perhaps, but I don’t think religion is behind any of it.

enough that I felt physically ill in the store and had to leave.

Your TV makes me wanna puke!

As for CRTs…well my 10 yr old 25″ Panisonic started getting strange multicoloured lines going across the top but I got a 28″ widescreen Philips from someone on Freecycle to replace it. I had a look for the model on Ebay and found them selling for around £30 but obviously you need to find one close to home. Gotta be the bargain way to watch TV these days.

I’ve asked for info on the weight – any guesses?

I went for a weekend and loved the mix of restored and yet-to-be-restored communist decay. I really wanted to go to Statue Park but didn’t manage it due to moaning wife….

szoborpark

I think that when climbing becomes difficult less rotating weight helps as the bike’s speed isn’t constant.

Martyrs were from a different time

Well that’s not true! I’m told that there are Muslim martyrs….

Anyway, certainly there are people who truly believe thought hard for an outsider to prove. Perhaps those people that give up their comfortable lives to become missionaries are showing true belief? I think a large number of those that call themselves followers of whatever faith do seem to blindly follow with little real understanding. This might be more obvious with those that are born into a religion in the sense that Catholics, Jews and Muslims are.

You can be Christian but not believe the Bible.

Well I think that’s a bit of a dodgy view but I can imagine there are people who call themselves Christian but more or less ignore the bible. More mainstream Christians might say they are not Christians if they don’t believe it but as long as they believe the key aspects of the bible then that’s all that matters I think. Possible Molgrips is saying that Christians don’t need to believe the entire bible in a literal sense.

Do you really believe this stuff? I mean honestly?

Do you not think that martyrs do…well did?

Junkyard – but as I understand it a point of Christianity is that God doesn’t want it to be obvious – hints and clues but not absolutes. Otherwise we’d all believe right? Possibly…. Anyway, I think a view is that choices we make now determine whether we get into heaven or not. It does all sound a bit odd but I suppose by it’s nature it has to. Like the idea of a virgin birth; if it happened it only happened once so no point arguing how unlikely it might be.

Individual atheists may do evil deeds but it’s NOT in the name of atheism

To be fair it would be an odd person who did something in the name of a disbelief!

Yes on the one hand we have mudsharks opinion of science on the other hand the current Professor for Public Understanding of Science at Oxford.

The experiment in question is not a valid test of prayer – not sure what would be as if something like prayer is real then by it’s nature it’s unlikely to be testable – for instance God is part of the process and will know about the test and alter results as he sees fit. Not saying that God exists but if you want to test prayer and God you have to be open to the outcome.

As for Dawkins – he has many critics amongst atheists and agnostics so I ain’t alone.

As for Spaceman, I’m sorry but I find nothing worth debating from you.

mushark – route is here;

looks like a nice ride, actually.

were you in mostly red lycra?

I saw someone wearing that just near Stanmer

I was near Warninglid at the time so was them.

I was not in red….

regarding prayer…Richard Dawkin outlines an experiment where three groups of very ill people are split up so that one group was being prayed for and didn’t know it, one group was being prayed for and did know it, while the third group were not being prayed for atall. The group being prayed for who knew it fared the worst out of the three (pressure to perform?) Prayer doen’t work, might make the person doing the praying feel better but thats it.

That really annoys me – bad science. In fact by metioning it Dawkins weakens his position as mixes science with bllx.

good men will always do good deeds, evil men will alway do evil deeds, but it takes religion to make a good man do evil deeds’

Curiously, many evil men have become good through religion so more bllx there.

bicycling Vicars

I do hope that we’d be impressed by seeing one of these rather than amused!

what I always struggle to understand is why religious people think that the only way to do the right thing by the rest of humanity is to belive in god(s).

Well some might but I don’t think that this is common opinion. The bible says the only way to heaven is through believing in Jesus, the resurrection and asking to be saved, but many Christians think good works are the key. The more bibilically led Christians say that good works are not the key though of course they expect Christians to do good things. Therefore they are entirely aware that non-Christians do good things!

Where do you find your peace if disaster should strike?

Drink?

“Ditchling Beacon is probably the most failed climb due to all the donkeys on the London to Brighton…. “

I cycled up it for the first time on Sunday morning.

It turned out there was a sportive finishing at the top…

I wonder if that’s the lot I came across – I rode from Brighton over Devil’s Dyke going north and met a load of numbered roadies somewhere between Horsham and Hayward’s Heath.

the Pope continues to tell people in Sub Saharan Africa that the use of Condoms is wrong whilst millions die each year from Aids

We might do better attacking particular aspects of a religion rather than the religion itself. Protestants are generally OK – those that don’t burn catholics anyway…though perhaps they think they’re helping reduce death from Aids?

It means we are all agnostics to a certain extent as we are agnostic about fairies

Are you saying that atheists are agnostic in a sense?

If you experienced watching faries dancing in your garden on a number of occasions, would you think you were going mad or would you be happy to think that you believe in fairies?

Mostly we just accept was scientists tell us rather than investigate things ourselves. Apparently the moon isn’t made of cheese but I think the milk marketing board is behind a cover up.

These:

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the ability of species to adapt the environment to themselves

Is that what we do? Well, a bit of adapting here, a bit of fekking up there….