He looks ace. So sorry you’ve lost him :(

Cuddling my about-11 years-and-a-bit-rescue dog that bit closer to me here right now. Absolutely dreading the day his time will be up.

crikey – Member
Designer; it’s not a proper job really is it?

No. I enjoy it way too much for it to be a proper job :-)

I was shocked that he was only 66 too. No age at all :(

You poor fing :(

Have never had one but think it’s definitely a grit-your-teeth-and-go-to-your-happy-place-in-your-head type experience. Hope it’s over with quickly and it turns out to be something of nothing (not something AND nothing as my lovely husband put it….!)

As I had to look up what BARB is, that’ll be a no then!

So, even less point in us watching at all now :roll:

We tune in every week to try and support the viewing figures but I must admit I do find it very frustrating. Having said that I also struggle to think how they could change it so everyone was happy because their potential audience is so diverse and into so many different things.

I know last night we were thinking the Splinter bikes thing was a bit different and a bit interesting but they spent all of about a minute showing that, and yet they seemed to talk at length to people doing the Brompton racing specifically about their outfits (I really don’t care how much that woman loved the colour purple…! Or how you tie a bow tie!?)

I agree there should be less interviews too – certainly less in that formal on a sofa in the cafe environment, everybody looks quite awkward and the whole thing feels a bit forced. And no one in the audience behind seems very interested. They should get more people chatting out and about while they demonstrate stuff – I’d far rather have seen more of that Atherton brother in action on a bike and showing us firsthand what he does, than sat on the couch and mumbling on in his somewhat monotone voice about nothing much.
Maybe they could have dragged themselves away from London and gone to visit him in Wales?

I’ve personally not really once identified with any of the different styles of riding featured on it either. Often me and him have sat there thinking: yes, but what about those of us who just simply take to the countryside at the weekend for a bit of fun and sociability? I think many people just think of mountain biking as serious full-face GNAR, when in fact there’s those of us who also like their rides to feature cake/ice cream stops too….

I’ve got an Acer Iconia A510[/url] – currently £340 at Amazon, so a little bit above your budget, but it’s got great battery life, quad core processor, 32GB onboard storage, micro SD card and GPS.
As with everything there’s pros as well as cons (screen is said not to be the greatest compared to others, for example, but to my eye I can’t really tell the difference, and the camera is a bit duff, but that’s not a feature I’ll ever use).

z1ppy – Member
Read the 1st book of Abnett’s The Horus Heresy series and very very impressed by how dark and well written it was (I need to revisit/finish them), have read a number of other 40K works that vary greatly in quality, though I am a fan of the very light weight fun 40K Cain series.

I’ll hold my hands up and admit I don’t actually read any of our stuff, I just make it!

I think I probably have to be careful what I say here in case I cross any kind of external-company-self-promotion-and-marketing sort of line, but if you’ve not read any for a while then maybe worth a revisit – Dan Abnett’s certainly written another two books for the HH series since the first :wink:

One of the cottages we stayed at near Afan once had them as their secure bike storage in the garden, and they seemed like pretty solid, secure pieces of kit.

Some interesting personal reviews here, including two different people whose houses were burgled, but couldn’t get into the bike stores at all and the contents were untouched!

Well I’ve decided to keep mine after all.

Have made several phone calls now in various different locations and never really dropped out once or gone crackly. In fact when I was out with the dog over the fields where I’ve previously hit real network black spots with my old Desire, the One S was solid all the way round.

So, touch wood, so far so good.

I did however follow the bit of techy advice I saw on the VF forum, which is supposed to adjust the threshold at which your phone switches between 2G and 3G. Not sure if that’s made a difference but I know it didn’t seem to be working very well before.

Oh and Stumpy, I think it’s a lovely phone – didn’t want anything as gargantuan as the One X and thought the Sony Experia looked a bit square and brick like for my tastes (and I’ve heard Sony are a bit rubbish at updates – they’re only just now talking about rolling out ICS to their handsets just as everyone else is talking about rolling out Jellybean!).
I was a bit concerned about there only being 16GB of onboard storage with this phone (which is nearer the 9.9GB mark after you’ve accounted for what it needs itself to run) but I’ve loaded on all my music (about 1000 tracks) and apps etc and still have nearly 5GB to play with, which is ample.
Guess it depends what you primarily want in a phone but for my needs, this One (see what I did there) seems great.

I have no advice, but the pedant in me approves of the use of the word ‘vacuum’ here instead of ‘hoover’ 8)

Too many people refer to it as ‘doing the hoovering’ when in fact they’re more accurately ‘henrying’ or ‘dysoning’ instead.

(yes I should probably get out more).

andyl – Member
as above. Get everyone to act really hurt when the puppy nips them and stop playing. You need to over-act ie big “ouch” and hold where it bit and look sad etc.

Plus 1 to this. It’s what puppies do to each other and how they learn. Making a high-pitched Ow, stopping play and getting up and moving away and ignoring him sends out a really strong physical message that biting and nipping stops fun and nice things from happening.

Make sure he’s got lot of things that he CAN chew and teethe though – tuggy toys etc. As his teeth will be itchy and when he does bite and knaw at those things you can reward him with ‘good boy’ type encouragement which will make the little chap happy too.

I would have to +1 the recs for black library/40k stuff if for no other reason than I work for them!

You do not seem to be alone….

I received delivery of a One S yesterday from Vodafone – lovely phone but still trying to figure out whether it works as it should, signal wise. Played around with a few settings as mentioned on that thread (and another thread it links to) and I’m trying to figure out whether it’s as good as I got on my Desire previously. Was out with the dog earlier and walking down a farm track – one second I had 5 bars and the next step I had none then two steps later had 5 bars again. Has yet to be tested properly outside the house and in the Peaks though. Real shame if it has to go back because I don’t want an iPhone and I don’t want anything like the humungazoid SIII either…!

Dogs is bonkers. I loves them!!

We had ours with Marks and Spencer for years, all throughout many expensive investigations and operations and always found the claims to be totally fuss free and straightforward. The vet put in the claim direct and they paid the vet so it kept me out of the whole paperwork loop.

However, we took out insurance with them when they were new to the market years ago and I think his first premium cost about £6 per year when he was about 3 years old. It’s rocketed each year until last year they wanted nearly £80pcm for an 11 year old crossbreed, which just was a no goer for us, espcially as you had to pay the first £x per claim per year and something like 20% of the cost of each claim on top of that to boot.

Have known of a lot of pet owners who took out policies with them at a low premium and they’ve hoiked the prices up. Not all of those people have claimed either, so it’s not just down to that.

From what I hear of everyone who’s been on Petplan, their premiums may seem a bit steeper than others out there initially but they don’t seem to have the crazy big hikes in price that Marks and Spencer have done.

And it’s definitely worth looking at the small print – not all policies offer the same level of cover.
There’s a good basic guide on moneysavingexpert about different sorts of insurance levels.

Good luck, he’s gorgeous!

Not got a personal recommendation for it, but I was looking at us maybe staying at Pepper House bed and breakfast in Satterthwaite in October.

Looks very nice, mentions a pub nearby and also that they have safe storage for bikes (although one man’s take on ‘safe storage’ is not necessarily going to be the same anothers as we’ve discovered!)

We’ve booked a little self catering place just outside Coniston on this occasion instead as it’s worked out cheaper for the four of us.

For further savings you can also get £10 off a £100 shop (which includes their 4 shirts for £100 offer) and £12% cashback through Topcashback for Charles Twit at the moment… tis wot we did for Onzadog’s latest crop of workwear shirtery :-)

Considering how insanely easily I bruise, I really should take up an armchair sport like knitting or chess :roll:

Last off was on my most recent ride out about 3 weeks ago now – rode all of the likes of Devil’s Elbow at a fair rate of knots and didn’t come a cropper (few twitchy heart-in-mouth moments though!), however Imanaged to do a comedy over the bars dismount at an almost standstill at Stanage and get three mahoosive rock-induced bruised lumps on my shin. Leg has been a lovely shade of black, purple, blue and green ever since! Nice.

(I actually won body armour too from MBR some years back for my photographic efforts in their rogues gallery of injuries and bruises – perhaps I should actually wear it!?)

I’ve had ‘running low on space’ warnings on my HTC Desire for a while now, but that’s due to the measly 512MB of RAM on board the Desire. I know the HTC One X and One S come with 1GB of RAM so I’m hoping that addresses that particular problem. We put 16GB micro SD cards in ours when we first got them though, so that side of things has never been an issue.

Try downloading ‘App 2 SD’ app – it’s free and tells you what apps are stored where (whether on your phone or on your SD card) and how much memory they’re all using and how much space you have left.

Samson rescue doglet
Here’s one example of just what fantastic young dogs are in rescue. If we were closer to the rescue or looking ourselves I think we’d be on him like a tramp on chips.

Here’s ours in his biking days though

I’d say think about what you can offer a dog on a normal daily basis and go for a breed that would suit that. its one thing to want a dog to join you for runs and biking every so often, but generally speaking that would be a dog with high energy levels, and if you’re only thinking you could give it a half hour walk round the block on a normal everyday basis (not saying that’s the case for you, just using it as an example) then a high energy dog would go a bit batsh*t crazy and bored, maybe even destructive.

Used to do voluntary dog walking at the local dogs trust some years back before I had a dog of my own and met all shapes and sizes there. So do consider a rescue dog – theres puppies and pedigrees in rescue too, and many are perfectly well behaved, happy little critters there through no fault of their own. When i was there a notable amount were aged about 9-18 months, lovely dogs, no issues, mostly there because people bought cutesy puppies and got bored or didn’t appreciate the amount of work actually involved. Heck of a lot of them were labs, collies, springers and crosses too.

Anagallis: love that pic of you lurcher and baby in the bed!

Our rescue staffy cross (think he’s lab x staff x parsons jrt) was an awesome little trail dog, retired now as he’s 11ish but still gets considerable exercise off lead every day. He lives for his walks and would crawl the walls if he had less.

Hey mattbee, just wondering if you’re any better now (as I see this thread is a month old). I’ve been diagnosed by the doc today as having this. Came on really suddenly this morning – everything was spinning (even lying down staring up at the circular light fitting – it looked like a spinning disco ball!) and I was actually sick. Horrid.
Doctor gave me some Prochlorpherazine tablets (one, three times a day) but while the nausea and spinning has mostly gone, I’m left feeling utterly done in and fatigued by them.

We were supposed to be heading down to the south to see friends for a biking weekend tomorrow, but have had to cancel that as I either seem to be feeling dizzy/unbalanced/sick or on the verge of being fast asleep :(

What worries me is that it sounds like it could last weeks, months even years and even potentially leave you with balance problems. I’ve only fairly recently been Jedi’d and was just starting to get a bit good!!

To include the TM symbol or not?

I knew Marley and me was going to be a predictable old pile of cliched tosh before I watched it, but dammit I couldn’t help get dust in my eyes when he died at the end anyway.

A film that really had me sobbing like a baby, and one which i was reminded of by the futurama episode mentioned here, is Hatchi: A dog’s Tale. Owner leaves and faithful dog waits for them to return until they grow old and die.

The fact its based on a true story makes it all the more heart string yanking.

Oh and also another sizeable vote for Up. Can’t watch it without tissues.

So sorry Pete. You’ll all be in a state of shock right now I imagine :(

That’s a pretty powerful video though. Difficult to watch but thanks for posting it. I’ve always found in the past that many people either don’t really know what Motor Neurone Disease is or have never even heard of it. They seem a bit shocked if you say it’s what Stephen Hawking suffers from – I think people confuse what he has with cerebal palsy sometimes as he’s lived with it for an almost inexplicable amount of time.

We also believe my mum gave up – the only thing she could control in her life was what she ate, and so I think as eating and swallowing became increasingly difficult not eating at all was easier and also hastened the end of her life. It sounds awful to say it but I’m glad it did and that she didn’t suffer any longer. You could see it written all over her face every day that just existing, was torture.

Awful, awful disease. My heart goes out to you.

I feel antiquated now by remembering how I felt at 21 (cue those wavey lines again) stuck in a rubbish dead-end job in London, not many mates, bit lonely and wondering if this was all there was to life. I didn’t know what I wanted to do or how to get there but I knew I wasn’t happy and when a friend at work suggested I do Bunac (fingerbike gave a link earlier in the thread) I thought what the hell, got nothing to lose.

It didn’t cost much (a lot of the costs like flights etc were covered by them) I actually worked on the summer camp programme they offer – spent 6 months in the middle of the Pocono mountains in Pennsyvania and spent another 3 months travelling all over with friends I made and had an absolute blast. Was scary as hell beforehand going to the airport not knowing what to expect and not knowing anyone, but it shook everything up and put me in entirely new situations and it was just what I needed to get me out of that rut.

Really echo everyone elses sentiments who advocate volunteering or doing programmes such as these abroad. If you don’t know what you want to do (and lets face it many people, especially in their early twenties, don’t) this is the perfect time to get out there, discover new interests, make new friends and live the kind of life unburdened with mortgages and other commitments while you still can.

Wish you the best of luck (and a token kick up the bum to help get you there too)

So very sorry the time came to say goodbye to your boy :( Am totally dreading that day with ours (he’s 11 and is currently licking my hands as I’m typing because I’ve got tears running down my face)

Not much anyone can say at a time like this, but I do remember finding the words of this poem to be some sort of comfort when my mum died.

You can shed tears that he is gone,
Or you can smile because he lived,
You can close your eyes and pray that he will come back,
Or you can open your eyes and see all that he has left.

Your heart can be empty because you can’t see him
Or you can be full of the love that you shared,
You can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterday,
Or you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday.

You can remember him and only that he is gone
Or you can cherish his memory and let it live on,
You can cry and close your mind be empty and turn your back,
Or you can do what he would want: smile, open your eyes, love and go on.

Hugs to you and Mrs BH.

Sorry to have missed it. Looks like you had fun!

On behalf of Rob, here’s a link to his offerings under ‘client and portfolios’[/url] , fight your way past all the wedding shots (!)

Drop onzadog a Gmail and he’ll forward the password.

See if your vet runs puppy parties – many offer these FOC and they’re great for gentle initial socialisation before going onto actual training classes.

Some useful pointers here Puppy advice

I has got a gammy knee so will be bowing out too :( Onzadog and mate Rob still coming though :-)

God sorry to hear that.. Lost my mum to MND seven years ago but in many ways it still only feels like yesterday :(
Shocked about her diagnosis only being 15 days ago though – had she been ill for some time? Never heard of it happening that quickly before. My mum was diagnosed in the may and died the following January.

Echo the sentiments that you could find a lovely cross breed in rescue that ticked lots of your boxes.

http://www.dogsblog.com/tag/suitable-to-live-with-cats/ has just a few examples of the many shapes and sizes of what lovely dogs are out there.

Sat at work so didn’t get to see it but just seen this on the Telegraph live feed:

“And here’s a nice little fact, courtesy of former cricketer Alec Stewart on Twitter. Not a bad one for putting the elder Brownlee brother’s victory into context…

Alistair Brownlee ran that 10k just 83secs slower than Mo Farah on a track having just swam a mile and cycled a marathon first.”

Holy sheet. That’s quite something!

Me and Onzadog tuned in. He spent most of it shouting abuse at the ‘features’ and I found myself inexplicably more focussed on the odd audience sat behind Creekers and that BMX Chap. The reeeeeeally bored-looking child staring into space and the slightly lost and dazed looking old lady with the pearl necklace.

Sounds great! We’re also bringing our mate Rob with us, who does a bit of professional photographering on the side.

Is this still on for next weekend?

Muzzle did you ride there yesterday? Thinking of a ride there tomorrow or Sunday and wondering if it’s still relatively dry?

Well I’ve yet to see it credited back, but the nice virtual lady I’ve just spoken to at Amazon said she’ll refund the difference as a one-time-only exception to their rule that they won’t price-match post order.

The reports of WiFi problems put me off the Prime too. After deliberating between various Android tablets for months, I went ahead and ordered the Acer Iconia A510 on Saturday (the olympic branding didn’t put me off as it’ll be hidden in a case), and took delivery of it about 10 minutes ago. Which was great until I realised that the price on Amazon has literally just dropped by £15…. :roll: