I was going to be sympathetic to him and say that anyone could get confused by UK rail pricing, but it sounds like he argued that he should be allowed to stay in first class, without paying for a first class upgrade, as “he couldn’t possibly sit in standard”. Also sent his aide to do his arguing for him.

Man of the people.

Well, if one line of argument is ‘Show me someone who was born Christian’ then it is relevant

I did suggest that that argument was not relevant either.

i found that MTBR thread peculiarly fascinating reading, despite having no connection with the topic. i’m intrigued to know how it pans out…

It is beginning to sound rather like either: one or two misaligned frames, or measurement error.

The nature/nurture debate is very interesting, on many levels, but perhaps not so relevant to this debate. I know people have asked about “being born Christian”, which does imply that they do believe you can be “born gay”, but, whether nature or nurture, or both, are responsible for sexuality is rather irrelevant. The point is, it’s not a choice, or an opinion. People can, and regularly do, change their mind on religion, but I’m not aware that anyone has changed their mind on whether to be gay or not.

Even that though is fairly irrelevant to the debate, since you cannot legally discriminate against people for either their religion or their sexuality, they are treated the same in law.

You can’t prevent bigotry because that is a state of mind, and, at the moment at least, we have no government authorised mind control.

We do actually. It’s called ‘hate crime’ and it allows for offences that are racially or otherwise aggravated to be given differential sentences.

Also, inciting racial hatred is a crime. If I stand up and preach hatred and intolerance against Muslisms, I could be arrested and prosecuted for it.

Yes but neither of those are bigotry, they are actions motivated by bigotry. You still can’t be prosecuted for thinking something about someone, only for acting upon those thoughts. Anyway, this moves away from my real point, which was:

Discrimination is illegal and the law does apply equally to all groups! If I ran a B&B and refused to allow Christians I could be prosecuted, just as the Christian couple who refused to allow homosexuals were.

But I also recognise that if you’re going to identify groups within society that must be protected from bigotry then that protection must be applied to all groups, for as long as it does cause conflict with other groups.

You can’t prevent bigotry because that is a state of mind, and, at the moment at least, we have no government authorised mind control. Discrimination is illegal and the law does apply equally to all groups! If I ran a B&B and refused to allow Christians I could be prosecuted, just as the Christian couple who refused to allow homosexuals were.

Do I think people with religious beliefs should be allowed certain exceptions to the law? Yes I do. As morally repugnant that is to me, it’s the price for living in a truly liberal democracy. I wouldn’t like it, but that’s not the same thing.

Why should people with discriminatory religious beliefs be allowed exceptions to the law when people with discriminatory racist beliefs aren’t allowed such exceptions?

A few other points; people have said if it’s OK to discriminate against the gay couple would it be OK to do so against blacks for example.

No it wouldn’t but no one is claiming the right to do that on religious grounds. Being gay appears to be at odds with the Christian faith; being black isn’t.

They are exactly the same. Justifying discrimination against a gay couple because it is “against my religion” is exactly the same as justifying discrimination against blacks because “they can’t be trusted” or whatever. Religion and racism are both just beliefs, neither should give someone the right to discriminate against others.

Mountain biking in the rain on Saturday, road biking in the rain on Sunday.

To be fair to the judges, a lot of the stupid sentencing during the riots was encouraged/pushed for by the politicians, before most of the sentences were overturned for being disproportionate.

I guess more of concern than having your atlas confiscated is that all maps, books, globes and electronic mapping produced in China and exported to the rest of the world now have to be Chinese propaganda.

Not really, you’ll just lose damping.

Presumably aircraft carriers, and indeed most ships, aren’t much use these days unless you just want to park them offshore of a third world country while you bomb it?

Find a registered childminder then, there doesn’t seem to be a limit on the hourly rate for them?

I guess the requirement for a registered childminder is just to stop people sending the kids to a friends/grandparents and asking for £20 an hour.

I’ll be there, in the Novices, for my first ever race of any description, and, unless I get off my arse over the next few days, my first ever off-road ride on my cyclocross bike.

They will all record that, whether they can display it at the same time as the map I don’t know. You may have to switch between the map screen and another screen to see distance covered info.

Interestingly the Oregon is only 4mm wider and 11mm longer than the Etrex, the Dakota and Etrex are pretty much the same size, except the Dakota’s screen is 11mm longer than the Etrex. All sounds like pretty tiny differences. The Dakota doesn’t seem to have anything over the Oregon except for price, so it seems like Etrex vs. Oregon, which really comes down to touchscreen vs. buttons.

I did look at the Etrex 20, because I’m not hugely interested in heart rate/cadence at the moment, but spending some time with a friends Edge 800 that had no idea where it was pointing unless it was moving has convinced me of the benefit of the electronic compass in the Etrex 30.

Good investment though. Got to be worth several million.

Not convinced, who is the market?

In (relatively central) London, and as unique as that, with that kind of view, there would definitely be a market. Nice, but totally bog-standard 3 or 4 bed Georgian terraced town houses 500 metres from that building sell for £1.2 million. There are enough people with £3-£4 millon to spend who either live in London or want to own a house in London that it wouldn’t be a problem to sell it. A lot of rich people like flashy, particularly it seems Middle-Eastern, Asian and Russian rich people, and there are a lot of those in and around London at the moment. I’d imagine if you just had the room at the top and a kitchen underneath there’d be at least 10 people interested in buying it for £3 or 4 million just for showing off, entertaining or meetings.

Are you in a terrace?

So the touchscreen does work with gloves, but if its a bit fiddly anyway then the buttons on the Etrex might be better?

As well as apocalyptic for the UK economy as a whole. This recession would look like a blip in comparison.

Theoretically, low, stable house prices would be good for the economy. The price of houses now is so much more than the price of building them that lower prices shouldn’t have to mean lower wages in the construction sector. People paying much less for houses would mean much more disposable income to spend on other things, so theoretically the price of food and other manufactured goods could rise enough to support UK production. Obviously we can’t get from where we are now to low house prices without a huge disaster, and even then, there would be no acceptable way of keeping house prices at that low, or of getting people to pay more for other things.

However, I can’t see how things can stay like they are now either. If they do then in a few generations time we’ll be back to the middle ages, with a few huge landowners and everyone else spending their entire working lives trying to pay them.

The thing that’s unique about the housing market in the UK is that we’re the only country that had a credit/debt boom that hasn’t had house prices reset to historical norms yet.

I’m not quite sure that’s true. A lot of northern europe has experienced huge rises in house prices over the last 20 years, and while a lot have fallen in the last few years, I’m not sure that many have fallen to ‘historical norms’ yet. Certainly places like Spain and Ireland have, but Sweden/Denmark, and even the US are still much higher than before the bubble.

Ours have certainly grown the most (apart from Ireland), and have barely fallen at all, instead pretty much plateauing since 2007-8. To fall to ‘historical norms’, even accounting for inflation, you’d be looking at wiping probably 50-70% or more off UK house prices. Obviously that would be bad for homeowners and disastrous for those with outstanding mortgages.

If you’re booking a while in advance, and taking bikes, it can be worth looking at the ‘non-budget’ carriers too. Things like sales, no extra fees and the better luggage allowances can make them cheaper than budget airlines. For example on most flights BA give you an allowance of two checked bags under 23kg, and will allow one of them to be a bike, for free.

This one was a bit sad. The creationism one was equally worrying, and even slightly sinister in parts.

Well everything else keeps getting more expensive, so why not housing?

Housing is not just getting more expensive, it’s getting more expensive as a %age of salary, and has been, at a huge rate since at least the 70/80s, if not (as a general trend) long before that. Most other things have actually dropped in price as a %age of salary over that period (hence a general improvement in living conditions), it’s only in the last few years that they have become more expensive.

Somehow, while we have tried to spend less and less on everything else, pushing manufacturing to China, forcing out small businesses, replacing small farms with massive, automated productions, we have been willing to spend more and more money on housing.

Price is pretty important.

A Garmin?
Book/Guide?
Skills day/course.
Sportive entry/trail centre trip/velodrome trip.

Housing benefit is propping up the market to an extent, at very least the rental market, which is propping up the rest of the market through buy to let and a huge number of private landlords. I believe that the plan is not to cap housing benefit at a particular value, but at 80% of market value, so the recipient always has to pay the remaining 20% if their rent is deemed to be “market value” for their property. Seeing as they won’t have the money to pay that 20%, particularly not if its 20% of a high rent, then I guess they will be looking for cheaper places. You’ll probably just end up with a two-tier rental market, landlords will either look after their properties a bit and rent them at 100% market value, or just let them deteriorate and rent them at 80-90% of market value, knowing that people are desperate enough to put up with almost anything for that little extra discount

It may well drop prices of larger houses and push up the prices of the smallest/cheapest properties, particularly in more depressed areas. I can’t see it making much difference in say, London, where the private market is so oversubscribed that people will pay almost anything asked.

The only thing that would be likely to drop housing prices would be home building, and it would have to be on a huge scale to counter owners views that prices should always keep increasing. Something like the council house building of the 50/60/70s would do it, and provide a much cheaper long term solution to housing benefit costs, providing they didn’t sell them all off again this time!

Not remotely relevant to the debate, but an interesting fact from Wikipedia: the “first legally recognised slave in Colonial America” was owned by a “free black colonist”.

Brompton is really the only option if you want to carry it any distance folded or use it on trains/buses. I have one and my girlfriend has a Dahon, ride is not much different, maybe a little better on the Dahon, which also has more gears, but folded they are incomparable. The Dahon is a right pain, even just to carry down the hallway and out the front door.

Maxxis Re-Fuse. I’ve found them puncture proof and grippy.

Endura Superlite Shorts. Mine are 3/4 years old and still completely waterproof, as tested on a very damp ride on Saturday. Good fit, waterproof zips, stretchy back panel. Will go over baggies or can be used on their own with a padded liner.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/article-2198255/Twins-flight-Parents-hand-sweets-ear-plugs-placate-fellow-passengers.html

Berghaus did go a bit downhill for a few years, and their low end stuff still isn’t much to write home about (low end North face doesn’t get quite as cheap, and generally looks a bit better) but the new high end Berghaus is as good, if not better, than the equivalent north face stuff.

I find I get red/black mould developing around the threads and nozzle of my bottles if I use 4:1 a couple of days in a row without a proper wash, never had stomach cramps though.

Out riding today, but no pictures. They would only have been of mud anyway. Loads and loads of mud.

1. Liger. It’s pretty much my favorite animal. It’s like a lion and a tiger mixed… bred for its skills in magic.

My first ever 100+ miler (106.5 miles) was on the fourth day of a ten day, 850 mile ride from London to Monaco that took in the Col du Lautaret, Col du Vars and Col de la Bonette, and totalled 45,000 feet of climbing. I think we averaged about 15 – 16 mph every day. Before that I’d only ridden 60 miles at the most, never ridden more than two days in a row (twice), and only done about 400 miles in the 4 months that I’d owned a road bike (actually a CX bike with slicks).

If I can do that on that sort of preparation (and find it much more achievable than I thought), then you’ll be fine on a 100 mile sportive. I found the right pacing, regular eating and occasional stops are the most crucial things. Do those right and you could probably do 200 miles.

Never stayed in the bunk house, but have stayed in one of the cabins. Small, and a bit old-fashioned, but comfortable enough. I would imagine the bunk house might be a bit more fun if you’re young, and closer to the pub.

The standard of flange at Loughborough is also nothing short of outstanding

Unfortunately the competition is all 6 foot plus rowers/athletes/rugby players.

Its maybe one degree steeper in the head angle, and a couple slacker in the seat angle, than the latest bikes of its type, but other than that I can’t see that it’s missing anything. Unless you think that 29ers/650B/Forward Geometry/Di2 are going to be the new norms, in which case nearly all current bikes are out of date.