Hey Dave,

Back on topic… did you see my post re breakfasts post target? Is it the cereal, or the milk that’s the main issue? I understand milk causes spikes in insulin, so is there something else (other than water) that I could take with cereal to help, albeit recognising it’s not part of the iDave plan?

Cheers,
Nick

iDave – I really love my bowls of shredded wheat/muesli/fruit & fibre etc. I reckon I could do an iBreakfast 2-3 times a week, but probably cereal the other days.

Is it the cereal, or the milk that’s the main issue? I understand milk causes spikes in insulin, so is there something else (other than water) that I could take with cereal to help, albeit recognising it’s not part of the iDave plan?

Nick

TSY – I was about 77-78kg (roughly 12st) – not hugely out of shape, but a definite belly and in need of dropping a few kilos.

I started doing a bit more exercise and generally eating better about 8 weeks ago – dropped to about 75 quite easily, but then stayed there.

Started the iDave regime about 3 weeks ago and now around 71kg, so all good. Aiming to get to 70 by the end of next week (roughly 11st) – so I’ll have dropped a stone in about 2 months.

For me, that will be enough – I’ll start eating cereal for breakfast again etc, but I have actually quite enjoyed the recent foods I’ve been eating – my chorizo, mushroom, tomato and spinach omelet was delicious! And the lentils/beans/stuff has been great.

Nick

Hugh – I’m in a similar position – clothes that were really a little on the small side are now perfect! And I’ve dropped a hole or two on my belt!

Been on the diet for about 3 weeks now. Dropped from about 75kg to about 71 – very happy!
However, I really struggled on my ride to work this morning and had to break open some haribos and biscuits at my desk – not ideal, but I’ve decided to call it a ‘Friday morning off’. Back to normal in time for lunch…

Nick

I’ve done a week of it (well, week and a half, but Easter was a bit tricky).
Gone from about 74-75kg to 72kg. Aiming to get down to 70-71 or less in 2 weeks time, but will see how it goes.

Been pretty strict so far, but the current abundance of Easter chocolate in the house is making it difficult at the moment.

As for the beans/veg thing, I’m finding that pretty easy. Last night I had a nice lean steak with a plateful of broad beans cooked in a pan with a bit of black pepper and lemon juice – delicious! Tonight was chicken breast with a bean salad and a green and tomato salad. Tomorrow tarka dahl, probably with a bit of chicken thrown in. All good!

Nick

I’m 5’10” with an approx 31″ inside leg, and ride a 54cm Jake the Snake – it’s great!
I’m near Twickenham if you’re local and want to try it.

Nick

I’ve applied for a pretty broad selection of events (athletics, track cycling, mountain biking, tennis, rowing), but the tickets are rumoured to be 10x oversubscribed, so I’m not expecting to get too much! However, as said above, it’s a once in a lifetime thing, so happy to spend a couple of hundred quid or so on seeing some of it live, and watching lots more on the TV.

One of the road cycling events almost passes my house (I could probably see it from my sons bedroom window), so I think we’ll make the effort to walk over to the local park* for that one!

*Bushy Park, if you’re interested!

Brack – I understand your hesitation about vintage, but I’ve had no problems with either of mine, and I wear them both regularly (albeit not together!). A good Rolex, Omega or other, bought from a dealer, should be fine.

Personally, I think that 1971 Rolex is lovely (there’s a few other Rolex Explorer’s on ebay too, most of which are very nice). Besides, I’m guessing you were born in 1971, so buying a 40 year old watch for your 40th birthday somehow seems in-keeping!

Whatever you decide, good luck in the search and enjoy it!

Nick

Have you thought about buying something ‘vintage’? This 1971 Rolex is lovely, and £945:


Rolex on ebay

Or this Omega:
Omega on ebay

I have a 1960s Omega Seamaster and a 1950s Rolex and love them both!

Nick

Try using virtualbox for the windows setup. You’ll still need a licensed copy of windows, but at least virtual box is free! It’s made by Sun (probably Oracle now). I use it occasionally for the odd app that I still need to run in windows.

Second the view on office – the 2011 version is orders of magnitude better than the previous version.

Cheers
Nick

Might be selling my MacBook Pro soon. It’s about 2 1/2 year old – 15″ 2.16 Core 2 Duo with 4GB RAM and a 320GB HD, running Snow Leopard (10.6.6).

Using it right now to reply, and it works great, but looks like I might be getting a new one from work.

Let me know if you’re interested…
Cheers

Nick

nick[at]nickbarnett[dot]com

Back on the subject of which one to go for (rather than Bromptons are great, Bromptons are terrible etc etc…)

I have an S2L. I prefer the look of the S type over the M type, and it feels a little better (to me) on the road.
And the 2 speed is quite a bit lighter than the 3 or more speeds – as soon as you go to a 3 speed I think it uses the hub gear, which from memory is about 0.5kg additional weight. The 2 speed uses a small deraileur.

The ti version is nice, but in reality is a bit of a waste of time (not that I wouldn’t prefer one given the choice at the same price ;-)). The only bits that are ti are the front forks and the rear triangle – the main frame (ie the heavy bit) is still steel.

Go buy one – they are fun!

Nick

Do you need to be in Kendal? Try heading over to ambleside or stavely (both with great bike shops – biketreks and wheelbase respectively), and better pubs!

Nick

In absence of a photo of my actual Defender, it’s just like this

Nick

Pardon…!

Btw, anyone want to buy my now sadly redundant Golf Gti?
http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/fs-ot-reduced-golf-gti-20-petrol-2000-x-reg-great-condition-now-18k-ono

Open to offers!

Nick

We have a Chariot Cougar 2 that our kids have almost grown out of. I bought it off here last year, it’s in excellent condition and hasn’t seem much use. Would be looking for no less that £400. Let me know if you’re interested…

Cheers,
Nick

nick[at]nickbarnett[dot]com

BTW, based SW London, but travel a bit!

We bought a Bugaboo – the standard ones that seem very popular and sell in John Lewis etc for north of £600.

It was fantastic – used with the cot bit, the car seat (maxi-cosi) and as a sitting-up style pushchair.

We had it for about 2 1/2 years, used it pretty much every day, then sold it on ebay for about £400, so an overall cost of about £200 which I think is pretty good and compares favourably with friends who bought something half the price and then threw it away when they had finished with it!

Nick

Bought one of these last year (Laser SB3). Great fun, but tough to race as the fleet are very competitive. Doing the World Champs in May (which happens to be in the UK this year) – should be fun!

A couple from High Street

and one on Parkamoor

EDIT – is it just me, or do none of these images work? Anyone else having problems sharing photos from Flickr?

Really? On which mobile?
The site is pretty good on my Iphone, but a dedicated app for the forums could be nice.

I offered to do an Android app for Chipps a while ago.
Chipps – any interest? Drop me a line…

Cheers,
Nick

They do have Angry Birds now. The maps are great, and the Sports Tracker is a great app.
Bounce it is pretty fun, and I recall a multiplayer ping/pong type game that is played over the network – that looked fun too.

Nick

Out of interest, does anyone have any experience of using more solid style insulated boarding to insulate their loft?

We have very limited insulation now, and want to add lots and also board the loft. 2 options we’re looking at are:
1. Insulate the the top of the current joists
2. Add raisers to lift some areas of the the joints to circa 200-300mm
3. Insulate to that depth
4. Board over the top

Or
1. Insulate the the top of the current joists
2. Add 4 inches of celotex (or similar)
3. Board on top

Anyone tried this? I’m told that 4″ of celotex is roughly equivalent to 8″ of rock wool, but would be good to hear anyone else’s experiences.

Cheers,
Nick

My wife has one. As far as I can recall, there’s no 3 branding on it. No idea if it’s locked – I haven’t tried it with any other SIM cards (I only have a lowly iPhone 3GS, so my SIM wont fit in the iPhone 4!)

Nick

Hmmm, spiders sounds like something Jeffrey West would do, although I can’t see anything on their site – try one of their shops?
These could be similar…
http://www.jeffery-west.co.uk/jefferywest/buyonline.asp?item=brilleaux_657_0

http://www.jeffery-west.co.uk/jefferywest/buyonline.asp?item=flashman_569_0

Nick

try http://www.boatsandoutboards.co.uk – I’ve sold 2 or 3 dinghies on there pretty easily.

Nick

If you walk the couple of hundred yards up to the river (by Hungerford Bridge) there’s plenty of chain options – Ping Pong, Wagamama, Giraffe (one for the kids!).

Nick

I’m still in the office with the prospect of riding home in the the dark in about an hour or two…

I'm just about to sell my Cherokee Jeep – it's a 4.0, but has an LPG conversion, so it's actually pretty economical (well, does about 20 MPG, but the fuel only costs 65p/litre, so its equivalent of doing about 40 MPG on a cost-for-cost basis, if you see what I mean!). Drives well, starts every time!

It's a 2000 X reg, done 95k miles, looking for about £2k – let me know if you're interested.

Cheers,
Nick

nick[at]nickbarnett[dot]com

Nearly bought one of these last week – £139 for a 2TB NAS drive seems good value
Buffalo Linkstation 2TB at Amazon

In the end, I decided to try an online option, so trying Jungledisk.com for a while to see if it works.

Nick

Higgo – HTC make the Nexus 1 for Google. The HTC Desire is virtually the same as a Nexus, but apparently has a few 'tweaks' to the buttons etc, so it's sort of a Nexus 2. I don't think any of the operators have taken the Nexus 1 (or Google haven't yet chosen to distribute this way) so they are still handset only, and therefore expensive. I've heard rumours that Vodafone will be shipping it soon.

In general…
I have a Nexus 1 and an iPhone 3GS. The Nexus is very good, but for basic usability, my phone of choice is the iPhone. I use macs, and have lots of photos on iPhoto and music on iTunes, so the in-built sync stuff all works really well. If you're a big Google apps user, and use gooole mail/contacts/calendar, picassa etc, then I'm sure you'd find the Nexus (or any Android based mobile) does an equally good job.

There's no doubt that the iPhone app-store has much more choice (about 180k apps vs about 30k apps for Android), but it all depends how important apps are to you. The browsers are great on both.

Hope that helps!
Nick

Always loved this…

This is what you want:

Lovely looking shoes (well, I think). Not cheap though.

Check out http://www.dromarti.com

Nick

That'll be a double Balvennie then…!
IGMC

Their shop in Fulham (the one that was originally Bonthrones before SBR bought it out) has closed down – looks like it's gone in to administration to me.

Nick

I'm looking at doing something similar, but using these guys:
http://www.iphotoscanning.co.uk/shopexd.asp?id=235

48p/slide quoted, but I'd hope you can get a better deal.

Nick

Big aquascutum fan myself – especially their cut with the sloping jacket pockets – I think it's called the Ascot cut, but not 100%. Fit me a treat – well, I think so!

Nick

Just tried ordering one – sold out!
Nick

I'm currently trying the fairtrade decaf from here:
http://www.origincoffee.co.uk/acatalog/origin_coffee.html

Pretty good, but I'm no coffee expert!

Nick

For my stag we went to a small village in Scotland, drank lots of beer and whisky, and did a few activities including rock-climbing and river-bugs (like white-water rafting, but in your own inflatable chair-come-bodyboard). The company that did the events was called Nae Limits[/url].

Also went on a do where they did an intro to polo, on horses – none of us were riders, but it was great fun. Place was in Ascot – can't recall the details.

Well worth pre-booking a restaurant if there's a decent sized group.

Have fun!

Nick