Parker International about the cheapest I have found mail order.

I find CRC the quickest and Wiggle not far behind. In fairness, this week was the first time I used JEJ on the web, rim was cheaper than the others and in stock and although I went for freepost and it says that this will take longer the rim was posted within 36 hours and delivered the following day all with emailed tracking info. Wouldn't worry about using them again if the deal is right.

I like my 29er Panaracer Rampage 2.35.

Agree, I have been using Panaracer Rampage 2.35 front and back. Seem to remember that the mag favourably reviewed them and I am very happy with them. Certainly find them a better all round tyre than the SB8s I started with although they may go back on for MTBO if we ever have a summer.

Using an HTC Hero android phone and very impressed so far.

I remember Robin Cook saying that the question that should be being asked about and of Blair was not whether he was lying when he said he believed in the presence of WMD etc. because Cook was in no doubt that he genuinely did believe it, but instead why did he believe that WMD existed and that the war was just in the face of the evidence.

Cook later wrote that he believed it was a failure of communication, see here

Alastair Campbell famously told an interviewer "We don't do God." although there is now plenty of evidence that this was not so e.g. here and here.

It makes me look at Robin Cook's question from a different angle.

Old car fell apart before Yeti became available so I went for an Octavia estate which shares many of the same parts and is excellent. I agree that you need to look at a tow hitch and a rack on the back. I can get a bike onto a roof rack carrier on the Octavia but I wouldn't fancy doing it on the Yeti and a tow hitch is going to be my birthday present to myself.

Audi is an Octavia/Yeti for those who like to pay for the badge – much of the running gear and the engine of my Octavia originally appeared on Audi's costing twice as much. Call it inverse snobbery if you wish, I call it a significant saving.

+1 for come clean. We took both kids out of school for 2 weeks to visit family in NZ. School were fine. I also see other side of it now as a school Governor and in primary school as long as you are prepared to be a little flexible ( i.e. not the week of the national tests ) there should be no problem.

Agree, we have latex in kitchen and amtico flooring in bathroom. Both are fine, come in tiles and do the job. Not sure about slipperiness of wet rubber so definitely the studded version. Only problems are that they may need to be put down by a professional fitter, certainly in the case of the amtico if you want any warranty, which adds to the cost and second, once they are down they are down so make sure that any plumbing or electrics under the floor are not in need of urgent replacement or alteration.

Too long a day.

Those who want to check should google – BMA Fees Guidance where no agreement applies – although frankly if you have some paint drying nearby you may want to direct your attention there instead.

Unfortunately, as I'm not a member of the BMA I can't access the recommended fee page but I would suspect that £85 is higher than the guideline.

Really interesting thread. I am not a GP and I have no complaints about the pay at my current grade, mind you I qualified 25 years ago and there were times when I wasn't so impressed. I do tend to do the certificates at no cost to the patient but if an organisation or a government body is offering a fee I take it. I personally feel uncomfortable about shifting peoples' hard earned cash directly from their pocket to mine – don't know whether it is my none commercial nature or the indoctrination of 30 years in the NHS. Mind you I only get one a month to fill in not 5 a day.

BMA fees are, I think, available without needing to log on to their web site.

To save you the trouble the fee recommended for filling in a proforma with no examination ( 20 minutes ) is 75ukp whereas a more detailed report, still without an examination, would be 113ukp so the GP concerned was certainly within both their rights and nationally agreed guidance.

If it mutates he'll have none.

It ain't necessarily so. There was a paper from Mexico, where swine flu was first recognised, that reported that people who had had the 2008-2009 seasonal flu jab which contained, as it happened, a strain of H1N1 although definitely NOT the swine flu strain, seemed to have some protection in the form of less likelihood of getting the disease, less admissions and no deaths compared with those who hadn't. The original article was in the British Medical Journal and there is a fair summary here Not the greatest study but it suggests that previous exposure to a similar virus or vaccination against a similar virus may protect you somewhat.

No way ( and it would fit ), but agree that unfortunately there is some one out there who will take the risk.

Try listening to the people who do the job and getting their ideas on what works and what is a waste of money rather than paying vast amounts of money to people who have never done the job, and in some cases can't spell job, to come up with a succession of impractical ideas for money saving and reform.

Of course if the ideas they came up with DID work then we wouldn't need them to advise the NHS anymore – or am I missing something here.

Has to be the dealer you bought them from as I understand it.

Had this with a set of forks recently. Fisher very helpful, but very clear that contract under Sale of Goods Act ( expect avalanche of corrections if I have name of act wrong ) is with the dealer you bought them from. They in turn then take it up with Fisher.

Whether I am your dad's clone in other respects I know not, but I am 6ft4" and around 19 stone and happily riding a 19.5 inch Scandal with a Twelfty seatpost and no layback. 90mm stem IIRC. My 456 is 20 inch. I have to say that both are fine for me although the 456 has a thudbuster seatpost which confuses the issue slightly. Doing bridleways, singletrack XC and MTBO on the Scandal with no problems so far ( about 18 months and 800km).

I have to say that in my case the seatpost on the Scandal ain't out that far. However, I know that I have a relatively long torso not just long legs, so my leg length may be less despite the similarity in height.

I agree with Brother_Will. I had a warranty problem on a Tora fork 18 months after purchase – leaking oil seal. Fishers wouldn't take it back direct, it had to go through vendor, but it was back from Fishers in less than a week with full repair.

Jessops is down the pan, shares got suspended today

Jessops still exists. All the good stuff, shops, stock etc. has been handed on to a new incarnation jointly owned by HSBC, a group of pension funds and an employees trust, leaving the old holding company, Jessops plc, with the debts and not much else. HSBC is providing a large loan in return for its share in the new company and the shareholders in the old company can either vote for this and get two grains of rice and a penny arrow bar for their trouble or vote against it and get left with all the debt and no assets.

BBC report here.

I own several hundred shares which cost me the grand total of 40ukp. On balance, I was right in thinking that the company was likely to be worth more than that and would in due course make a recovery, clearly the pension funds and HSBC etc. think the same, it's just that the none pension fund shareholders seem to have been classified as not wanted on voyage. Ah well, nothing ventured……

+1 for IKEA

Didn't DIY it and did go for alternative worktops mainly because we knew a good tiler/fitter already and simply collected the bits for him. We had a plan but IKEA people very good at sorting it out within their software. As above, it depends how near they are – they do deliver ( or their agent does ) and they will provide a fitting service – again they contract it out.

I've just got used to ending the threads… must be something I say

Thank God, I thought that was just me had that effect.

Am I still allowed on the forum if i don't have an On-One?

I think you are also still allowed on if you have had one in the past but otherwise probably not.

However, all is not lost and as I have more than one On-One I am prepared to offer you honorary ownership of one of them for forum access purposes only. Trusting that this is acceptable…….

OpenOffice is utter gash if you want to do anything more complicated than writing a thankyou letter to your nan.

I think my problem was with the straight dismissal with no justification or reasoning. I am therefore glad to see a little more discussion.

By "can't/won't cope", I take it you mean than having the ability to save in the OpenOffice odt format from within Word is somehow a bad thing that they've done to make it difficult?

As said above by others, Office 2007 and all before are, as I understand it, only able to read and write Open Document Format (ODF) files after the addition of a plug in that was provided by Sun Microsystems. I think that may now have been provided as part of a service pack by Microsoft but I have yet to come across a version of Office in the NHS or academia which has the plug in/service pack.

Microsoft's XML format is called Office Open XML which they appear to have shortened to OOXML ( as opposed to Open Office which shortens to OO and uses ODF which is also an XML format – not confusing at all ).

If I understand my googling correctly, for the moment Open office is one of the few programs that can read and write the internationally agreed Office Open XML format and Microsoft Office itself won't be able to until Office 2010 comes out even though it is their open format.

The Free Software Foundation also have a fair bit to say on the matter.

In the end you pays your money, or not, and takes your choice.

Never see a lot of shades of grey here does one.

I have used Open Office for about 6 years. Although it occasionally needs a little thought to clear up compatibility issues with good old Microsoft – who I am sure are not creating such issues just to put the likes of some of us off – I do all my writing, spreadsheets, presentations, tax etc. on it. I shift stuff between Open office at home and Microsoft office at work. Only irritation is if you forget to convert to MS proprietary format from OO open format before porting, no problem the other way and OO will open and work on and save in Doc or the other MS formats without worrying. Draw your own conclusion as to why MS can't/won't cope with the accepted open formats.

It updates as necessary. It has a significant group of developers working on it, funded by Sun IIRC and it is free FREE, not 60ukp and the same again whenever MS upgrades. Not nick your kids student card but FREE.

If you get very brave you can then resuscitate your old PC that won't run Windows 650B or whatever they are on now with Ubuntu or other Linux and still use Open Office seamlessly, and did I mention that it is FREE.

Helps if you like/play rugby too.

I have noticed that when people identify my wife's accent their next comment usually refers to rugby.

She tends to smile and say that she's never been religious.

Mrs Ratadog is a NZ citizen as are kids. Even the labrador is all black – apart from a little grey round the muzzle.

I agree that I prefer South Island, but you will be going where the job is I guess. It's a great place and I heartily recommend trying it. Nice people, good beer, wine and food. Relaxed lifestyle and a range of climate so should be something to suit you. When I was last there a couple of years back the cost of living for most things was roughly equivalent in that salaries appeared less but so did the cost of the bulk of the things we were buying. Things that were comparitively expensive were those for which an international market exists and that were imported e.g. cars, computers, etc. where the cost was pretty much the direct equivalent of here and therefore cost comparitively more against salary. ( Although everyone seems to buy their cars second hand from Japan – law there says cars have to be hocked in after 3-4 years and guess where the cast offs go ).

Down sides? Well, its a country the size of UK with only 4 million occupants, 2 million of whom live in or around Auckland. If you only feel alive in a teeming metropolis it may not be for you. Healthcare is by insurance and certainly in the South you may be a long way from a hospital. If you have family here it's a long way each way – figure up to 36 hours airport to airport depending on connections – this may of course be a plus. MOST IMPORTANTLY If you own property here then the sale and conversion to NZD will buy you more for your money there – albeit not as magnificently so as a few years back – BUT if you then decide you don't like it you are likely to find that the cost of coming the other way works against you – depends on the market. Had we gone 7 years ago we could have bought a luxurious house with tons of land there, but had we tried to come back 3 years ago at the height of the boom here when things weren't so good over there, we would have struggled to buy a terrace in a bad part of town. That also obviously applies to salaries and savings made there going less distance here.

Clearly, the best way would be to live there whilst being paid here. Still struggling to work out how to do that on a long term basis.

Bottom line is that if I was in your shoes I would go, whilst making sure that I rented my house here and didn't do anything financially irreversible until I knew it was for us.

Quality is excellent

Agree, although I have only had casual stuff from them. XXXL in the T-shirts seems to come up as per their sizing chart

presumably to get one of the silly 4×4 posemobiles

Not sure. On the positive side they are all good Yorkshire Lasses, either born or adopted, on the other hand they did buy 1 series in the first place.

Not an easy one to call.

Based on evidence this week – any BMW

I know 3 people with BMW 1 series all of whom are planning trips to the car dealers before next winter but on an n=2 basis the BMW 3 series cabriolet seems to have a narrow disadvantage on all the others. Saw one that coudn't get over a kerb to get into a drive and one that couldn't get up the camber of the road to turn right. Mind you the driving may have had something to do with it.

On the other hand, in these days of front wheel drive almost everything, somebody else's rear whell drive BMW may well be the perfect car for the

Scandinavian flick

Learnt many years ago on a rally school's mark 2 escort.
A) approach corner too fast
B) flick steering in opposite direction to corner while hitting brakes and changing down the gears and then wait for rear end to start to slide so car pointing in completely the wrong direction for the corner
C) try not to panic and remember that it ain't your car
D) at last, turn steering wheel in direction of corner and press accelerator and feel relieved as rear end starts to slide other way and corner comes back into view.
E) when car pointing in roughly the right direction steer into the skid, back of the accelerator so grip returns somewhat and travel off at unabated speed to the scene of the next accident.

Don't try this at home unless you have a skid pan the size of Wembley

I have a skoda 1.8tsi. Replaced a subaru. Engine is great, boot and interior are huge, parts bin technology from audi/vw and glad I went for the 4×4 version this last month.

Very happy with purchase.

Has anyone used a place/shop called Wheelies? (www.wheelies.co.uk)

Wheelies detail their history on their website. Basically, as I understand it, they got into the market of supplying replacement bikes for insurance companies so that rather than dealing with a few manufacturers they deal with everyone you have ever heard of and then some. More recently they have started offering employers a managed cycle to work scheme and that is how I came across them when my NHS employer used them to do a scheme. I asked for a Montague Paratrooper AKA Swissbike ( big bloke needs folding bike ) and they supplied one from their warehouse which is better than the importers could manage.

They were fine to deal with and the whole scheme ran like clockwork. Obviously, it is only one experience but I would have no worries about dealing with them again myself.

Followed by How Much?

I have used both, and also the Cinders that came with my 456. The Fire XC were 2.1 I think while the Cinders are bigger and the Rampage are on a 29er. The Fire and the Cinders have a slight advantage at this time of year as in my hands at least they seem to give more grip in the mush/mud, but it's not a huge advantage. The 29er started with SB8's but they simply couldn't cope with the winter mud and although they may go back on for summer MTBO events the Rampage seems to be a good all round, all condition, all terrain – including tarmac – compromise for what is basically my ride out the gate and see where I get bike. Seriously thinking of moving the 456 off the Cinders and onto Rampages as well to see if I get a bit more roll without a huge loss of grip.

+1 for Gransfors Bruks small forest axe, hunt around and you can find them for around 45 -50ukp

Been to too many RTAs and fully support what you did.

Greased rounded head bolts of the right size on mine.

I live about 5 minutes away and round here it is still very icy, but i haven't been up into the forest and will therefore direct you to the opinion and photos of someone who has namely http://twitter.com/StevePeat. Mind you given the huge disparity of skill it is distinctly possible, nay likely, that his

it road really well

is equivalent to my

couldn't even stand up wearing crampons

Depends how you feel your skill levels compare to the great man.

I look forward to your report.

Draws chair nearer fire, cups hands round coffee mug.

Why? I have a 29er Scandal with the RST M29 80mm and it's fine. I suspect that a 120mm will push the front end up somewhat giving a weird riding position even if the frame is happy to take the strain.

+1 for the Islabike – just a class above everything else and everything sized for small people.

Given that I appear on this forum as a gundog I should try and put up images of her, and I will, just as soon as I work out how to link to fotopic.

Ah! Young dog

More recent pose

661 Race lite knee and shin plus Chicken wings elbow guards for trail centres, Lizard skins lightweight knee and elbow guards carried in the pack and put on for XC descents/places where I have fallen off before.

There was a recent paper from Mexico that looked at the effects of having received last year's seasonal flu vaccine, which did contain vaccine against an H1N1 strain although not the same one causing swine flu but one of its sisters cousins or aunts. But if you had had the vaccine then you were a lot less likely to get the swine flu and none of the 8 patients who had been vaccinated and subsequently got swine flu died whereas 18 of the 52 unvaccinated patients who got swine flu did die. Its not the greatest study, and you have to be able to grasp the idea of relative risk to see the point, but if the death rate in one group is not a lot and in the other is 35% then the "it will never happen to me" group doesn't have to be that large for its members to be in with a good chance of being wrong.