If I recall, the Lonely Planet “self guided walking tour” was great too.

Didn’t bother with the Vatican museums. Huge queue, not my thing. There are great museums everywhere that you don’t have to queue all morning for

The forum. Go and wander round the forum.

As I say, if they’d hit a tree, would Churchill be claiming it was the tree’s fault for not being bright yellow?

however if you don’t can’t see them then where does that leave you?

Driving too fast. “Make sure you can stop within the distance you can see to be clear”

Also, where in the article does it say he was going too fast?

It says that the judge stated that 50mph was too fast on that road in the dark

We accept risk based pricing for motor insurance, why not health?

Now that’s a dangerous road to go down. Driving is an option, healthcare isn’t. Should parents with children with genetic issues or disabilities be charged more for their healthcover?

I have no particular objection to the government deriving statistical data from the best possible point of collection. We might actually see some evidence based policy as a result, rather than the policies of appeasing that horrible rag that you’ve just linked to the website of

The Chilterns shall be dry and dusty all year

Yes. Just a tube

Any long f2.8 telephoto is going to cost a fortune.

You can get started with less, e.g. a f4.0. It won’t look quite like the phtoos in the paper, but I find the complete f2.8 blur-out of the backgrounds is a real shame anyway.

Tube slipping inside tyre, you need better/new gripper rim tape

Mine broke well above the rim

Rode round a corner in the South Chilterns and there was a bald eagle sitting on a branch.

But it turned out it was part of a falconry event.

(although the football is worth a look, if only because it’s a stunning spectacle. Would recommend the side stands – they’re actually a bit of a mix of both teams’ ordinary joe-public supporters. It’s the two ends that are a hell of a sight: http://farm1.staticflickr.com/170/404388822_8858d1edf6_z.jpg )

Been to Belgrade. It’s a great city if you have someone to show you around. The challenging thing without that is that a lot of the best restaurants, bars, etc, are almost invisible from the outside. Would happily go back.

Food’s pretty good if you’re a meat eater: It’s basic but fresh and clean and big portions of it.

It felt very safe walking around. However, traffic is a bit crazy – someone we met there said to me “the easiest way to get killed in Belgrade is to be run over”. Younger people were keen to practice their English, we found no hostility in conversations, although there was a strong nationalist streak to people’s opinions (we also heard some strongly homophobic stuff, but that was from football ultras). I found myself doing a lot of “erm-just-nod-and-smile-and-bite-tongue”. People are very patriotic for obvious reasons: spoke with a very bright engineering graduate who could by his own admission have worked anywhere, but wanted to stay “to build Serbia”.

In summary, find someone knowledgeable to show you around, and it’s great. Enjoy the cheap wholesome food, have a beer on top of the citadel looking over the Sava at 3am, enjoy.

(Watch out for a trick at restaurants/cafes where they bring you a bill with stuff you didn’t order. Dunno if it was just me but I saw that twice. Each time the “real” bill came so quickly after I complained, I could only suspect that the waiter had rung through the more “detailed” one, cancelled it, put through the real one, but brought over the cancelled one, to pocket the difference. Oh, and the airport taxis are often ripoff merchants, something pretty common to a number of Eastern European cities in my experience.

I’d keep away from political rallies/demos, and be wary around the big football clubs’ crowds. I was there to photograph the Belgrade derby. It was properly bonkers in a pretty thrilling way, inside the ground, but a huge battle outside – 50+ arrests, police hurt, etc.)

Go here: http://www.tfl.gov.uk/roadusers/cycling/11701.aspx#page-link-tube

Going dahhhhn

Tricky one for me.

The Californian team that many of my favourite colleagues over there love, or the horrible scuzzbags who represent the attempted theft and destruction of my favourite team, the Browns.

I’m on the fence.

“it’s £1.50 and if you don’t pay or overstay we might fine you a whole £2” how effective will that be?

They can’t fine me 0.01p

It falls off a cliff when you go fast though. They’re not exactly aerodynamic

Current running mpg is 28.6mpg according to Fuelly. Best has been 32mpg.

Okay, I’ll rephrase, is there anything guaranteed to do so? I think half our country’s economic woes are caused by the assumption that certain assets must increase in value by more than interest rates (and therefore policy frameworks should support that inflation). It’s why nobody under about 35 can afford a house

Being able to bung a load of this into the diesel certainly helps the cost, mind.

[edit – wrong thread]

30mpg for a diesel, give or take. If you drive everywhere at 85mph, you’ll be nearer 20mpg

This is also the reason I don’t recycle – because it’s akin to turning up at an earthquake with a dust pan and brush.

“If you can’t be part of the solution, be part of the problem” ?!

Why not just recycle so a bit less of your crap is buried in the ground?

1. Never borrow money to finance anything unless it is going to increase in value faster than the interest rate.

Does any such thing exist?

For the 6 years we had a Bongo we only paid £300-£340 a year thanks to one of the specialists on there.
Lifesure Group.

Oh, we tried them, but they couldn’t make it cheap for us. Insurance is like that, innit, they all want their target market and if you fall out of the profile group, it ramps up fast.

We were with 2Gether, one of the other frequently used insurers on there.

I suspect it’s complicated by the fact that we use it as our main (only) car, park it in a moderate risk area, and have business use cover. And that’s on top of the main complications: grey import, 8 seats.

The camper-modified crowd always seemed to get very very cheap cover.

Anyway, sorted now!

Well speaking as a very tall person (6’7″) I can see the sense in this. A linear division based on height always seemed a bit unfair – big height = big frame.

Your new BMI: 19.75
Your old BMI: 21.52

One of the key bits of case law:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunlop_Pneumatic_Tyre_Co_Ltd_v_New_Garage_%26_Motor_Co_Ltd

“It will be held to be penalty if the sum stipulated for is extravagant and unconscionable in amount in comparison with the greatest loss that could conceivably be proved to have followed from the breach”

Actually BT’s excess charge is £5 for 5Gb:

http://www.productsandservices.bt.com/consumerProducts/displayTopic.do?topicId=33467

Hence it’s broadly in line with what you’re paying on your regular package, and can’t easily be accused of being an unfair contractual penalty. And that’s notwithstanding the fact that you definitely agreed to a contract up front, which is a much less dubious claim than one asserted by a private parking company which doesn’t even have any charge over the land they feel they’re “policing”.

If BT charged you £60 for going a few Kb over the limit, they’d probably be laughed out of court

Most of the London towtrucks I’ve seen are actually lifters-onto-flatbed

Presumably

I don’t think anyone should presume anything.

So even if the painting is a tad faded, your in the wrong.

I’m the last to sympathise with most of what drivers do wrong, and get away with. But here, the council are trying to enforce a legal procedure against her. Therefore their markings, procedures, and paperwork should be spot on.

You’d have to be particularly obtuse to not realise there was something different about that space.

You’d have to be similarly obtuse to deny that on a wet winter’s day in the dark or under streetlighting, it’d be easy to see that marking.

The council will probably refuse your direct appeals to them. My guess would be that they’d then drop it when they learn it’s going to adjudication. But everyone’s mileage varies.

I got off a ticket on the basis that the council had misinformed me about the restrictions in the reply to my informal appeal letter. Adjudicators don’t like bad process.

The process should be:

– Write an informal letter to the council. They’ll probably refuse the appeal.
– Formal appeal. If they refuse this, take it to adjudication.
– Adjudication is a short face to face meeting. Adjudicators are unsympathetic if councils haven’t done their job.

That marking is ridiculous.

Unfortunately going to adjudication means you can’t pay the half-price offer if they made one. Nice.

I’d post this on the Pepipoo forum. They’re proper experts

Read some statistic somewhere that councils make a loss on parking fines,

My local council makes a huge surplus. http://www.getreading.co.uk/news/s/2117793_reading_councils_17_million_parking_profit

A colleague got a demand for (and paid… doh) £60 after going to a restaurant. They parked in the car park, went into the restaurant, but her husband went into the post office next door briefly. “One of you left the site, £60 please”.

(with a bit of encouragement from me) they took it up with the restaurant, and the conversation went something like:

“We obviously won’t eat with you again”
“Sorry, it’s nothing to do with us, they work for our landlord”
“Well, we’re still not going to eat with you again. Sorry, landlord or not, the risk isn’t acceptable”
“Oh. How about a free meal, and we’ll take this up with the landlord?”

Result: Free meal. Oh, and the parking company was changed later.

If you are pissed of at getting fined by shysters, write to the retailer.

Yep, this. Tell them you won’t be shopping with them again unless you can confidently park there without people trying to rip you off.

Let me put it another way; If you put something back on the wrong shelf in the supermarket and they demanded £40, would you pay them? If you signed in the wrong box when a parcel gets delivered, and they demanded £40, would you pay them? If you stayed in a pub a minute after drinking up time and they took objection and demanded £40, would you pay them?

Private companies can’t just decide to “fine” you.

you seem to be misunderstanding what a penalty/fine is.

So do you. I hereby fine you £100.