@ton – depends how long you live.

Personally I’m told I’ve got one of the best available, an RBS Staff Final Salary one, but I can’t pay any more into it so it’ll never amount to much – I paid into that from the age of 23 to 32, but I’ve not paid into anything for the last 5 years – I’ve be meaning to look into it, but I haven’t had any real spare cash each month to pay it and private ones are expensive – I’ll start again when we set one up in work, or auto-enrolment forces us to, whichever comes first. My Wife, if we last that long is a Nurse with an NHS pensions, another good one.

As for whether you should? Consider this – whilst life expectancy in the UK is 80ish, that of course is ‘from birth’ every year you live your expectancy goes up – if you’ve made it to 30 without dying of some horrible childhood disease or topped yourself (most deaths under 30 are suicide) you’re likely to live to around 90.

So you spend the first 20 years of your life (ish) being taken care of by your parents, you probably think you’d like to retire at 65 and not wait until the Government says you should down tools at 70 or whatever – so you’ve got 45 years of work to earn all the money you want to live on for those 45 years and another 25 in retirement.

Currently the state pension is £113 a week, £450 a month – okay, you might be lucky enough to have paid off your mortgage by then – but even taking that out of the equation – how’d you fancy living off £450 a month, whilst you’re still paying council tax (£100 a month?) Gas and elec (£100 a month?) Water (£40) Food (£200 a month?).

But sod it eh? It’ll sort itself out won’t it.

Personally I think it’s draconian – I don’t think drink driving is right, the UK’s roads are just too busy these days to allow someone to drive after 2-3 beers like they used to.

But, what difference does a few mil make? Aside from a few weeks before Xmas when the Police like to show a bit of an effort with random stops they’re not going to be able to spot someone who’s had 80mil per whatever over someone who’s had 100mil – no this will only ever be applied in the event of an accident and how on earth are we to know – you hear it all the time – “oh pint of weakish beer and I’m okay” or “had a few glass of wine 9pm last night, I’ll be okay by 10am” but really you’ve got no idea until the Police make you blow and hey presto – even though the alcohol is no longer effecting you and you weren’t to blame causing the 5mph ‘fender bender’ you’ve been caught up in you’re licence is gone and whatever else with it.

Sort of, I ride ‘winter venues’ year-around, but there’s a few places that summer only, they’re just bogs in winter, you’d spend all day grinding away in axle deep mud going nowhere fast and wrecking the trails.

Gta V gets updates every 4-6 weeks, I don’t recall any fixes since the very first few weeks and almost all were caused by people circumventing the game to cheat.

The vast majority are updates with new free content, new guns / cars / events etc – so even now 12-18 months after it came out they’re still making it better.

If you want to play off-line without updating just disconnect from your wi-fi.

I’d got for Cwmcarn – BPW is great, but unless you’re uplifting you don’t get much “bang for your buck” – yes the fireroad is an easy climb but it’s a completely featureless and boring slog – the descents are great, but over all too quickly.

Anyway – I’d go with the original XC loop at Cwmcarn – it rides perfectly in all weathers and has the best final descent in the world (no doubt I’m wrong)

I’ll forget about Dre before I forget about Danny Mac, but that it’s brilliant!

Lilly for Road Party 3!

jools182 – Member

a disposable income

Ain’t that the truth, I’ve been skint for one reason or another since 2011…

The next three months will be the toughest yet, the only plus side to this I can see is come payday March I feel so rich compared to Dec-Feb that it’s create a ‘new normal’ and I’ll forget what it was like to the free single and (very) gainfully employed.

Sadly gone bust now, but there used to be a place in Newport called ‘Sofa King’

Tagline “Our price are Sofa King low”

A quick rinse with whatever the wife has spent a fortune on it boots this week (I don’t bother with the conditioner) and brush whilst a bit damp – I used to use all sorts of weird and wonderful things in my 20’s but looking back a photos it was all terrible – best hair of my life at the moment.

Only downside, all the waxes and shit made it look slightly less grey – still, better grey than pink.

They’re non area specific numbers, like 0845 but somehow shadier.

franksinatra – Member

I understand the famous for being famous thing but these people are usually you ‘c-list’ celebs who are snapped coming out of nighclubs and then everyone loses interest after a few months. But Kardashian seems to be huge (and no, i’m not just talking obout her cartoon arse)

Oh and she very publicly married the world’s most famous Egotist and occasional Rapper Kayne West – they have a baby called, wait for it….

North West…

I know this despite never watching E New, visiting Perz Hilton’s website or reading any of the trashy ‘celeb’ papers.

That’s how mainstream they are.

Not sure I follow?

So you bought a 29’er, and you really like it so you decided to buy another one to replace it.

And you’re wondering why you feel a bit odd getting rid of it?

Famous for being famous, well you could say she’s a ‘reality TV star’, but that’s pretty much the same thing.

If you’re looking for positives her fame could be taken as a sign of the end of the ‘great recession’- the early to mid 2000’s were really the age of the ‘reality star’ and the ‘bling culture’ they epitomised – once the banks fell and everyone no longer thought they were rich all those It Girls, Former Page 3 ‘models’ and ‘socialites’ fell out of favour – but the fear seems to have passed for now and that sort of nonsense is back – even Kerry Katona seems to be booking gigs at the moment!

Usually at the EXACT position where the plastic cup of warm “god I hope that’s beer” lands – why do people do that?!?

Unless I’m at Glastonbury, when I relay on the goodwill of friends to match their way in days before I arrive and set up my tent right at the edge of the walking path facing the main stage.

Overrated? By who’s standard? If you don’t like them fair enough, I hate a lot of music.

But they pass almost any ‘test’ you want to throw at them – popular? They sell huge amounts of albums in an era when lots of bands can’t.

They sell out huge shows, when lots of bands can’t.

They’re credible, they weren’t thrown together by some music biz exec – build from the ground up, like a proper band, went throw a lot of teething problems, people joined, people left, people got sacked and at no point ever did Dave Grohl ever stand up and shout “I’m the drummer from Nirvana – listen to my new stuff!!”

Award winning? They’ve won awards from everyone from the Grammys to Kerrang! to the NME to Brits to MTV, to the Q Awards to the Teen Choice awards – that’s a huge spectrum of awards that at least one is credible to anyone.

Is it Dad rock? Probably now, wasn’t when they started but they’ve grown old gracefully – they’re not stood there botoxed, with their hair dyed still singing songs about teenage angst – I can’t stand that.

It’s a great story IMO but it’s being doing the rounds since the internet was a boy and it’s proven to be fiction.

I quite like a bity of Swifty – her newish one, something about shaking is good and I liked the one about feeling 23, I feel about 23 when I’m riding, of course when I crash I feel every one of my 37 years ha ha

This won’t be the last time this happens with a ‘major artist’ this pay-for streaming thing is still a really new product so the goal posts will move about – but the truth is Spotify has recently got it’s 10 millionth pay subscriber but it still paying fractions of a penny per play to the record companies, but the time it dribbles down to the artists it’s even smaller – this is no doubt a result of a deadlocked negation.

Taylor Swift is one of the biggest names in Pop at the moment, brand new album out and with Xmas just around the corner I wouldn’t blame her pulling her stuff to try to increase sales of downloads and physical sales.

In short they won’t tell you, in fact the criteria apart from some basic ‘must haves’ won’t be available to anyone much below board level unless they’re policy making underwriters and if they did see it, they probably couldn’t translate it – it’s algorithmic.

Honestly, if it’s all ‘good news’ just move on to the nest provider – underwriting these days is getting more like insurance, you could be penalised for sharing some trait or other that’s no fault of your own.

I believe most of the SuperStar hubs are rebranded Novatech – mine have been great, they seem to be prone to cracking freebodies when changing bearings – but I’d bet money on that having something to do with people forgetting to remove the little grub screw that holds them in place before setting amongst it with a hammer and drift.

moshimonster – Member

I seem to remember MBNA cancelling the credit cards of thousands of customers who paid in full and on time every month as they weren’t making them any money.

Is that right? What about all the money they must have been making on merchant card fees then? I’ve been paying all my credit cards off in full every month for many years and never had a problem.

I can understand them cancelling dormant accounts and MBNA probably had their fair share of those as people shuffled from one card to the next, but not cancelling active accounts as they should be making some money off every card transaction.

It’s to do with BASEL III rules, in short banks can only lend a certain % of their assets – during the credit crunch lots of banks withdraw unused OD’s and CC’s so they could either fall back inline with BIII or so they could lend that money to someone who’d actually use it – if they offer someone a £10k card limit, even if they never use it, they have to set aside assets to cover it.

The level of Bad Debt amongst the Pay Day lenders is huge, largely because they correctly discovered years ago that they’ll make more being the ‘last chance lender’ rather than just pay-day lenders. However they are pretty ruthless and employ a lot of pretty “dirty” tactics to ensure they do get paid more than you think.

Firstly – they ensure they’re first paid – so if you apply they’ll phone your office to make sure you actually work there – they have the details of when people get paid for most if not all the big employers.

Secondly they take payments via Debit Card at 1 min past midnight on payday.

So cancel your card? – that won’t slow them down for long – they can apply for your new card details from your bank who HAVE to give them to them unless you appeal it BEFORE the request – if you do you have about a 30% chance of success. If you do cancel your card they’ll also consider you now hostile which means next pay day they’ll do you for the full amount, plus lots of interest and charges – they’ll also do it in lumps – in case you don’t get paid enough, they’ll do it £100 at a time to get the max they can.

So, close your account and move to another bank? It’s not going to hurt them – card payments, unlike DD payments etc never expire – they can, and will apply from your old bank for outstanding card payments and the bank HAS to pay it – even if your account is closed – now you owe your former bank the money, plus charges and interest.

This will all happen as quickly as 60 days from you defaulting, your credit history will be in ruins from the effects of the defaulted pay day loan and over-drawn bank account, you’ll be getting letters every day from various “solicitors” and debt recovery people – BUT you will have nicked yourself £500 of ‘free’ money.

In Britain thanks to fair and right laws around debt and provision of basic human necessities like utilities, food banks and the NHS NO ONE should ever NEED a pay day loan, but they’re still huge business, some people take them because they’re too proud to be seen in Aldi, some because they’re stupid and quite a lot because of the millions in marketing they spend that makes it sound like a good thing to do and it’s not your fault there’s “too much month in your pay packet”.

I hope one day the whole industry is torn down.

Get on noddle and see for yourself, it’s free.

Frankly though, there might be a thousand different reasons, some might be bad, some might not be – I was a credit underwriter for 10 years and there’s not enough room on here to explain all the different parameter.

If your credit report is as you think it should be, consider applying elsewhere – there is no universal credit scoring system – that’s a myth sold by the credit report people.

If you need anymore info once you have your report, just ask me.

Had an jersey and shorts set of theirs for Xmas last year, the jersey looked great new but wore quickly, the shorts are basically crap – photos look good, but they’re very thin have no flex in them at all, they want to fall down as soon as they’re wet – the padded liner though is brilliant, best I’ve ever had..

I’d say there’s a little of that going on, it’s not like the big players Samsung and Apple are fighting on a level playing field – they do their own thing really.

I think you’ve got to have trust in your Doctor, frankly they’re terrible at communicating but do tend to consider all the variables when prescribing and go for the ‘greater good’.

Does your employer need to “save its ass”?

If so, do you think someone with 90 days experience of this business is the right person to form the “ass save” plan?

Frankly your post is pure “middle management bullshit” as in it uses lots of words to say almost nothing.

I’m guessing from your choice of language you’re based in the US?

Anyway, IMO you have to consider your position in terms of ‘leverage’ your a new employee who plans to tell the CEO that his business needs it’s “ass” saved and you only you know how to do it – by all means, you could enjoy spending 30 mins telling him how much of an idiot he is before he sends you packing without a reference, or you could wind your neck in a bit, be a bit more humble and constructive about the situation and sound him out about your plan – he might accept it and perhaps re-think he plan to give you a line manager you don’t rate, or at least you can keep earning whilst you find something that befits your ego.

Plenty, min spec for Win8 is 1Ghz processor and 1GB RAM or 2 if you want the 64bit version (do they still offer win8 in 32bit??).

Anyway, forget about the “oh won’t someone PLEEEEEASE think of the start button” Windows 8 is more than just a fancy looking OS MS sold us because it hates us all, it actually needs fewer resources than windows 7 to work faster than windows 7.

hora – Member

“Yeah, I’d never have bagged then KOM without my new headset” said, no one ever.

Do you believe most Strava times are legit? I don’t.

But if you were to get the KOM with a kingheadset you could say ‘I did it and I didn’t cut any corners’

Nah, Strava is next to useless off-road, for example I ride with the same mate, week in, week out, we both use Android Smart phones to record our rides – without fail he will have travelled an extra Km and climbed an extra 200m, I chase ranks / KOMs for a laugh, but I don’t take it seriously.

I was just after an example to try to illustrate that a headset as long as it functions does add any performance or fun to ride.

Other brands offer headset with perform as well or better than CK in formal reviews and test and also anodically on here and other MTB forums.

Not great VFM, FSA, Cane Creak and Hope all offer good headsets for much less.

It’s hardly a ‘sexy’ component is it, at very best it’s unobtrusive.

“Yeah, I’d never have bagged then KOM without my new headset” said, no one ever.

As for the The Blade, I think it’s a great trail, sadly the great bits are strung together by lots of long boring featureless bits – so it’s like Skyline, only not as bad.

“All” would be:

Rookie Green and Blue 7.8k

Blue Scar 7k

Penhydd 14k *Penhydd and Blue scar share a climb which you could skip half off on the second lap, saving a 2k climb

W2 (which covers you for the Wall and Whites) 44k

Blade 24k

Skyline 46k *Skyline shares some trail with Blade, so you might be able to skip doing some sections a second-time.

And Afan Bike Park, which they rate at half a K, but if I’d bet my left-nut it’s much longer than that if you add them all up.

Which is give or take 150k

Might be better to wait till summer, more light hours and Skyline with be a much shorter loop by then once the Windfarm goes in.

Sept was brilliant!

I’ve managed a lot of riding this year, Alps and a few trips to BPW but I have to admit I’ve enjoyed riding the ‘community built’ stuff at Castle Coch (north Cardiff) mid-week after-work, but it’s rubbish in winter, can’t wait for BST to roll back around!

Not to my taste, I think Life Of Brian was probably their peak IMO, but it’s not really as good as I remember it being – whenever I watch it now (4-5 years since the last time usually) I rarely watch more than half an hour of it.

I always thought the TV series was crap, Holy Grail wasn’t much better.

I couldn’t stand Fawlty Towers either.

Perhaps my taste is more mainstream, if I’m in the mood for a bit of 70’s comedy nostalgia I always enjoy the Two Ronnie’s, Morecombe and Wise or Porridge / Open all hours. Those sorts of things, are so obviously ‘of their time’ but timeless at the same time.

Heaven,

On the subject of ‘odd’ meat products – I once had a tradition Bravaian Breakfast of White Sausage with sweet mustard and white beer – it was amazing.

I went to school with the winner of ‘Survivor’ series 1 an also-run from Series 4 of BB and far more impressively Tanni Grey-Thompson multiple London Marathon Winner, and holder of 16 Paralympic medals, including 11 golds.

My Wife’s cousin is Meatloaf’s Assistant / Tour Manager.

Frist Car was a Sirocco GTi 1.8, I bought it before I passed my test as way of motivation, begged my parents, mates and anyone else to give me lessons in it – finally parked it up in the community centre car park 200m from my house and they had it towed and crushed inside of 48 hours! It was even taxed! “looked abandoned” apparently – Police not remotely interested in someone having someone else cars destroyed – small village, small minds.

Anyway, passed my test and with insurance rates being through the roof and being a inexperienced driver I sensibly bought a modified MK2 Golf GTi 16v and tried to kill myself in it, managed 18 months without so much as a mark on me or it, considering the amount of time it spent sliding or spinning it was nothing short of miraculous – sold it on and the nest owner crashed it about a week later and wrote it off.

Seeing as I was now a driving God and seemingly immortal I upped my game an bought an extremely ropy MK3 Golf VR6“cheapest on Autotrader” which should have been a bad sign, which I took to be good – spent £2k on it, spent another £2k making it road worthy… it repaid my love by catching fire at 80mph – and not in a sort of “ooo I see smoke” type way, no in a “fuuuuuuuck me flame are shooting from behind the dash, and I’m doing 80mph on the motorway” type of thing – burnt to the ground – but apart from being a bit shaken up, my immortality remained untouched.

You know when you’re really young and you buy ‘Third Party Fire & Theft’ insurance to save some money? – well you can buy ‘third party only’ insurance too – not much good if your £2k car you paid £4k for burns…

So with no money I bought a even ropier Mk2 MR2 GTI oh this was a peach, it was a rebuild Cat C write off, MR2s are many things, but simple they are not – but it was okay because the guys who rebuilt it had a body shop – so the paint was faultless and the panels straight – but it was a total basket case – they bought a “turbo look” engine bay cover which did indeed look like the one they fitted to the Turbo model, but sadly let rain water get all over the engine, which meant that it run like crap when damp and worse made the complicated variable intake manifold jam shut – they put out about 160-175bhp depending on the year at about 7200rpm, but at 4000rpm they couldn’t pull a greased stick out of a dogs arse. Sold it on again for half what I paid for it.

At this point my folks too pity on my and being as they were emigrating they gave me the use of their car a 2 year old Passat V6 Tdi SE, that my Dad paid £30k for new – it was brilliant, if a bit boring, but very comfortable – it was odd in that it made no sense ‘on paper’ for a diesel it wasn’t very economical – mid-30’s in normal use, and for a V6 it wasn’t very fast, it only had 150bhp which isn’t much more than the usual 4 pot versions, but it drove really well.

Had it for 8 years.

After that, I settled down with my (as now) Wife and took a job 30 miles from home, problem being that when my Folks came home to visit – 4 weeks at a time, they wanted “my” car back, so I had to buy my own (which has always gone sooooo well before) so I bought a Honda Accord Estate Diesel which was brilliant(ish) it was massive – took my Shocker in whole, both wheels on – massive comfy leather chairs (too big to be mere seats) sat-nav (didn’t really work) even more boring and slow than the Passat and not much more frugal – of course at that point I decided to go online and see what was what with them – I assumed, being Jap they’ve been completely reliable – no, early ones suffered from – cracked exhaust manifold (£700+ VAT to fix) water ingress in the headlamps which cause them to fail (£300 + VAT to fix) and the fancy electric boot doors can go wrong BUT MINE DIDN’T! No, because it had broken before I owned it and the previous owner had ‘fixed’ it – he did this by re-wiring everything, very badly – within a few months it would simple lock me in and set off the alarm – £500 to fix, I say fix after 3 attempts at 3 garages it was never really fixed.

Then some **** stole my new Lapierre Spicy 516 from our uninsured shed, heart-breaking – with all our savings gone on our impending wedding and 2.5 years left to run on the HP for the Spicy and the Honda on the blink again I decided to sell the Honda, spend half on a bike and half on a Mondeo – cheap motoring, every says so.

I hated that car, it never broke down, but the exhaust fell off, the suspension broke continuously, it ate through brakes, it smoked terribly and it was just horrible to drive, be driven in, be close to or even think about so 12 months ago I MOT’d it (£600) and sold it for £1200, £100 more than I paid for it.

I’ve given up buying cars now (I don’t have much luck) and have taken a Company Car, a brilliant Seat Exeo estate, it’s got loads of toys, does loads of MPG and has never once, gone wrong in even the tinniest way and if it does – it’s not my problem – I love it.

I also owned a Honda CBR600 F4i at one point, it was amazing, but my immortality seemed to be running out so I got rid.

dbukdbuk – Member

Is that other guy capable of constructing a sentence without some reference to “marines”? Cock

They would have picked 30 seconds of him talking from about an hours worth, so he might have only mentioned it twice and in the first half he was sat there with a de gloved thumb and in the second half he was on Gas & Air, I think we can excuse him a few things

Oh and clean your savage looking Hope discs by spinning the wheels and holding a sponge against them – not me, but I do have a mate nick-named ‘KitKat’.