Just because we haven’t been conquered since 1066

My Dutch friend always laughs at that, and begs to differ.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glorious_Revolution

Warrants a boycott. They don’t own cycling’s heritage

Oh and that train on the 2nd of Jan may depart with empty seats, and most probably will! Companies with highly perishable* products do not maximise their profits by selling every product it has – the Marxism bit falls over here a little.

National infrastructure is not a “product” to which that methodology should be applied. There’s a big public cost we all bear as a result.

There’s a lot of Stockholm Syndrome on display here.

Indy Fab Steel Deluxe. 10 years old or so. Sorry about the tyre match, and I realise the rocks need weeding.

What’s wrong with a map?

Edit: that came out harsh. I think it’s incredibly positive how much countryside there is to explore out there, and teaching kids that there’s more than just trail centres will do them a power of good. I can’t wait to show my little man around the chilterns, to show him the huge playground that’s out there for those with a bit of initiative.

The market here is simple supply and demand.

It’s not, though, because there are two types of buyer, both with radically different constraints on pricing. A home buyer has to be able to afford the mortgage out of income. That’s a pretty simple variable.

But an investment buyer, if they have enough equity, can basically acquire properties sequentially at no “operational expenditure” cost. They’re making a big leveraged bet on house prices, not buying a home, and there’s a much less rigid ceiling on prices as the bubble inflates (prices go up, less homebuyers, more rental demand, higher rents, better yields, more investment buyers after ‘free money’, house prices go up, less homebuyers, more rental de… POP)

It’s a flawed supply and demand model. Investment buyers don’t care about price, they care about yield.

Of course it’s insane. It’s got massive speculative bubble written all over it.

Anyone used Michelin Mud 2’s?

When you’ve had ordinary private eBay auctions pulled by a company under claims of trademark infringement, accompanied by nasty legalese in emails, you go off them. Would never buy their stuff again, ever.

https://twitter.com/ormondroyd/status/403584120472629249/photo/1

There’s a contradictory message given to cyclists.

1) Oh, you want lanes? Well we’ll give you a few facilities at junctions.
2) FOR GOD’S SAKE DON’T RIDE THERE!! It’s dangerous!

You know, I wonder how many lives we’d save if we forced other road users (cycle, car, truck) to do a CBT

Okay, let’s say you save 25 lives per year, roughly 20% of all cycling deaths. VERY high estimate considering most bikes crashes are caused by the driver.

There are 30,000-90,000 inactivity deaths per year in the UK. Let’s be conservative and go for the low number. Your CBT reduces numbers considerably for a valuable form of exercise, and inactivity deaths go up by nine hundredths of one percent.

You’ve failed.

What kind of idiot chooses to cycle in potentially lethal traffic?

You know this is a cycling forum? 🙂

Given that pedestrians are killed more often for each mile walked than cyclists are for each mile ridden, the logical conclusion that can be extrapolated from that rhetorical question is basically that nobody should go anywhere, ever, except in a tank

While i accept that it isn’t the most practical way to get from A – B, it’s a lot safer than taking on motorised vehicles.

Actually I’ve seen a study that showed a higher injury rate per mile for cyclists on the pavement than on the road.

Companies can and often do sack people when they’re arrested for something criminal. There’s no “beyond reasonable doubt” clause in employment law, which leaves the employee having to fight it out in a tribunal, at best, if it happens. In the case of a trainee accountant, given the expectations of trustworthiness and the severe impact of any criminal record, it’s a slam dunk when the employee has basically admitted it in public (The statement from her employer at the time talked about not condoning her actions)

I’m not sure employers would typically wait for a criminal conviction when they have a pretty decent bit of prima face evidence in the form of a tweet saying “I dun it!”

Which one ??

Failure to stop after an accident.

I’d like to see you try to ride my route from Heathrow into Victoria on the pavements. There’s no way you’d be safer.

She was mostly sacked for the imprisonable criminal offence she committed.

we can all get tarred with the same brush just because of a selfish few

I can think of no other minority group in any other context who would ever trot out logic like this. Cyclists have a kind of stockholm syndrome.

If any driver tells you that the actions of other cyclists give you, as a cyclist, a bad name, ask them what they’re planning to do about drink driving, seeing as other people’s drink driving gives them, personally, such a bad name.

Alkaline diet is a favourite subject of the tinfoil woo your-doctor-is-lying brigade.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Alkaline_diet

http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/DSH/coral2.html

Our current approach of road-sharing, bikeability and education has given us a modal share for cycling of 2%.

Holland’s approach of high quality, comprehensive, continuous infrastructure has given cycling a modal share of 26%.

And that, to answer the original question, is why segregated infrastructure is seen as the answer.

Sorry, share-the-road, take-the-lane, don’t-segregate people, your argument is lost.

Preliminary police reports said that Jean Charles de Menezes jumped the gate

But is it the infrastructure or the drivers?

Yes

If this happens to me, please feel free to be **** furious and to protest en-masse. Thanks

I donated to War Child. I think it was that Legion photo of the kids in the “Future Soldier” t-shirts that pushed me down that path this year.

Vulpine Harrington, if you can get it within the budget. My lightweight one is a lovely bit of kit

So you don’t like Poppy’s cause lots of people are promoting them?

Straw man much?

So they stand behind newsreaders at 11 o’clock and make sure they do some proper remembering? Or do you mean it’s compulsory for them to wear a poppy?

Certainly the latter. If anyone on TV dares not to wear one, the complaints flood in.

Which is why, as I said, you get Countryfile segments obviously filmed in summer*, where everyone is wearing a pristine (and presumably handed out by the producer) poppy.

*Unless Staffordshire’s deciduous trees are still in full leaf in October/November, that is.

It’s not compulsory though is it?

https://twitter.com/search?q=%22not%20wearing%20a%20poppy%22&src=typd&f=realtime

I’d far rather encourage my kid to learn for themselves and think for themselves. Just about every churchyard and cemetery has some commonwealth war graves in it. It’s relatively easy now with the internet to find out the story of any one of those young people’s deaths, and to read and learn about the battles and campaigns in which they fell. I think it puts a hugely individual perspective on it: These were real people, often very young, with a whole childhood and young adult life snuffed out in an instant.

That’s real, genuine, and (in my view) infinitely preferable to the “I AM CONSIDERABLY MORE POPPY THAN YAAOU” nonsense that goes on at the moment, which for me has considerably demeaned the whole thing.

I doubt anyone doubts the Legion’s good work.

It’s the Poppy Police on Twitter and in newspapers’ letters pages, and rent-a-quote MPs loudly shouting that Google’s poppy symbol wasn’t big enough, and the TV programmes that feel forced to hand out poppies to keep up appearances (yesterday’s countryfile had a beef farmer in all his dung-scooping non-finery, with a crisp poppy, filmed in what was clearly mid-summer judging by the leaves on the trees). It’s also the sense of militarism and nationalism that it’s being embued with – more “We love our armed forces” than about remembering the horrific death of millions. That’s what’s shifted in a big way in recent years, I think, and I find it really distasteful.

Me. I have major reservations about the way the campaign has shifted over the last five years.

I think it’s pretty disgusting the way there’s a huge witch hunt now over ANYTHING that is perceived to be “doing poppies the wrong way”. For example: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/google-doodle/10441144/Google-criticised-for-demeaning-tribute-to-Britains-war-dead.html

Last week the Poppy Appeal’s official twitter feed included pictures of smiling young children in “Future Soldier” t-shirts.

It’s completely distant from my own personal feeling of what remembrance is.

I’m not “refusing”, nor am I doing nothing personal to commemorate. I’m just choosing not to engage with the campaign itself in its current tone and form.

(source:

The study, “Public Health Impacts of Combustion Emissions in the United Kingdom,” concluded that diesel emissions from cars, planes and power plants contribute to an estimated 13,000 premature deaths annually in the United Kingdom. In particular, the analysis found that emissions from cars and trucks were responsible for slightly more premature deaths than car accidents in the UK based on data from 2005.

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es2040416
)

Diesel exhaust causes more attributable deaths in the UK than car accidents do. So bugger off anyone who says it’s a “moneygrabbing scam” or “not a big problem”. You’re all right Jack, of course.

Paxman probably did as much and I will wager will be pushing politicians buttons more effectively and long after the moth has flown to his next bright light.

And this isn’t a “bright light” for Paxman? He’s entrenched in the system. I like him, he’s very good at what he does, but he’s not going to run with the agenda once it stops being current big news

I think it was a blatant lie, but not the most blatant in recent political history.

Very subjective whatever way we look at it, but my case for the prosecution is that hundreds of thousands of people were promised they’d pay nothing, and will now be paying tens of thousands of pounds. That’s quite big

Genuine question Binners – what exactly do you expect a coalition to do? Exempt themselves from any decisions, execute no policies etc. Keep the seats warm until the next election?

I don’t expect them to go far beyond either party’s manifesto

I don’t think you’re reading what he’s saying.

Luckily with organisations like them, Occupy, Anonymous and The People’s Assembly I don’t need to come with ideas, we can all participate. I’m happy to be a part of the conversation, if more young people are talking about fracking instead of twerking we’re heading in the right direction. The people that govern us don’t want an active population who are politically engaged, they want passive consumers distracted by the spectacle of which I accept I am a part.