Don't forget to polish the inside of the lid of your Golden Virginia tobacco tin (that you're going to keep all this stuff in) so you can use it as a mirror to signal to aircraft.

I'm sure all this was covered in a copy of Battle/Action that I bought in 1979.

redthunder,

Awsome picture.

I'd like to see it on billboards outside every ASDA.

Number 1 daughter.

Number 1 son.

Taken just as they woke up the other day (after I'd been out taking dawn pics of the allotment).

If there are no consequences then why hold back?

Because you're a grown up?

why do people choose to be knobs on here if in real life they are nice people

What, all of 'em?

I often add a sachet of coconut creme. Doesn't make it taste very coconutty, but does add a certain je ne sais quoi.

Time for a quick reprise?

Don't say you weren't warned!

Z-11 are you suggesting I misquoted you?

The reason you and your neighbours can't get together and choose to get your bins collected is 'cos it clearly wouldn't bleedin' work.

And if you think it would then IMHO you are insane.

competition for the market, not competition in the market – basic understanding of economics might help you understand that

And a basic grip on reality might help you understand why it's not possible to have individual bin collections. No one would want to provide the service.

why cant I and my neighbours choose to get our bins collected by someone who offers a better level of service?

I think you'll find that most bins are collected by private companies that are contracted by councils.

But don't let the facts get in the way of a good argument.

Maybe.

MTFU

Pretty good – have a look at the pics on my website.

I also did the online reporting on the LAMM site.

And in my spare time I shot a set of pics for the next Trail Runner mag.

Just went up to the control above the C/Score start on day 1 and then the finish, but came back via Beinn Buidha summit on day 2.

Good fun

Oooof!

Were you there?

I contributed to the last one, so I looked it up for you:

wedding venue thread

My wife died in 1970 (peacefully in her sleep).

Is that the bottom of Jetlag at Glyncorrwg?

She never rang! Sorry guys.

Ahh, the power of the singletrack forum – clearly she is a reader.

One thing to consider, you might want to report the incident to the local police station, just to cover your ass.

Not sure I'd want to do that though, as it might make it difficult to tell my insurer that I'd not been involved in any accidents.

Road traffic incident has nothing to do with the school, the head won't want to hear about a minor scrape.

Might not want to hear about it, but if it was the head at our school and I was the OP then they probably would hear about it, especially if I thought it was symptomatic of a wider problem that was a danger to my kids. OTOH you can't have too much information. I think the head may well "want to know" just because they like to know everything that is going on in and around the school.

which how many other photogs would even bother to reply let alone read

At least 2.

I agree with all of the others that more than likely the moving driver was at fault.

BUT…

One thing not mentioned by anyone is that your child goes to school with their child.

For the sake of future relations in and out of school, I would tell her to "**** off" in as sensitive a manner as possible, maybe also talk to the head about the incident just to get your word in first if there are any nasty consequences.

It was pouring with rain, and he was halfway down a slippy muddy gully, and he gets a pic of that quality. Well done sir, that's what I'm talking about.

Thanks! 😀

Soop

(BTW 3 of the keys on my keyboard are broken – hence bad spell'n')

1, When out on it, how safe do you feel on the roads (quiter roads wouldn't use main roads)?

Perfectly safe. But also only on quiet roads.

2, Does the child/ren get bored being carted around?

Not on short trips. A bit if longer.

3, How far do you go typically?

Half a mile each way to school and back.

4, Is it hard work with it on the back, steep hills?

No, but then I'm usually only taking them half a mile or so to school. Furthest I've done in one hop is about 10 miles, but then I'm in tourist mode not race mode.

5, Could I use my SS MTB with a higher gear ratio?

On the flat.

6, Do you make your child/ren wear a helmet as well in the trailer?

No. In fact we've probably got a bit blase about this and don't even strap them in. Not good the other day when I'd removed a wheel skewer and my wife took the trailer and had the wheel fall off half way up the road – whoops!

We've had a massive amount of use out of ours, which we also bought on ebay. Had a special baby sling in when the kids were really little but didn't use it that much. They are 5 and 6 now and it's a bit of a squeeze but we're just graduating to eldest on her own bike and youngest on a tag-along for school.

We took the trailer cycle touring in France for a few days last year with eldest on tag-along and littlest in the trailer with loads of camping gear. Only did about 10 miles a day but it was great.

I take the pics at the LAMM. The organisers are pretty good at fixing people up who've lost partners as there are a few every year in your position. Get hold of Martin Stone – I'm sure the contact details are on the website – and he'll do his best to fix you up.

I've a suspicion it'd actually be easier to sit in a bar, with a beer, smiling at people.

At 1 a.m. ?

Bound to attract the right sort.

Talking to your neighbours is rarely a bad thing, even when you don't have anything important to say.

I think the only thing you HAVE to do is phone HMRC and let them know you are self employed. Then they'll send you a tax return.

You may need some public liability insurance depending on what you're doing.

I don't think anything will show up in the tax system until you submit a tax return, which doesn't need to be for a year anyway.

Do you need to post pics? If I were to use a dating service again I'd go with an ad in the Guardian SoulMates section. Does that need a picture these days? When I used it it was just a recorded message.

Personally I'd prefer not to have pics prior to meeting, but then I didn't want to know the gender of our babies either, so maybe it's just in my nature to like surprises. I'm pretty sure that asking to meet women who are fit and outdoorsy is probably sufficient to turn up a few nice looking ones.

Can't be bothered to read all that stuff – but you should listen to me as I met my wife via the Guardian singles pages 10 years ago. We've been married for 7 years, have 2 kids, no plans to divorce and last weekend she won a bike race.

I have to say when I started using the singles page it was with a view to finding a partner rather than a fling, so if you're in that position, here's my advice:

Firstly, answering ads is a waste of time. You will be one of many and may not even get beyond the first hurdle of meeting. Whereas if you place the ad you will get some responses, and probably from someone who has thought about what they want.

Secondly, be brutally honest in your ad. Can't remember mine exactly, but it was something along the lines of:

"I'm doing up a house and I go biking, windsurfing and do other sports a lot, so I don't have loads of time. I'm looking for someone who is fit and outdoorsy and who can get by without access to a hairdryer at the weekends"

You will still get some responses along the lines of:

"I love mountain biking but I got a puncture 3 months ago so haven't been lately. Maybe you can fix it for me."

Ignore these.

If you are lucky you will get a response from someone who sounds genuinely interesting.

My wife's response included the information that she had recently taken a year out to cycle to China.

When you meet, hopefully you will immediately fancy the woman in question. If you don't then probably best not to meet again, rather than relying on the fact that you fancy her once you're pi$$ed. If you do fancy her, explore some fundamental issues such as politics, religion etc early on and see if any of those things are going to scupper you. Also if you have an agenda such as kids, don't hang around before mentioning that – I went out with a gorgeous girl I met via the Guardian a few times before, apropos of nothing she said "I just want to say I don't ever want kids" At the time I'd not even thought about that, but as soon as she said it I thought "sh1t" – so if that is on your agenda, don't go too far down the line before you mention it.

I guess in short, I am saying that it's best to be honest from the off rather than disappointing (or disappointed) later.

But it can work, so just get on with it.

islabikes

They're both rubbish. Have a look at this

Nothing (which isn't the name of a band) unless I happen to hear a burst of Bert Kampfert's Swinging Safari, which seems to be my kids (5 and 6) favourite at the moment.

Or the odd bit of Radio 4.

Its either meaningless or it isn't. It can't be both.

It's not meaningless. In fact I went to some pains to explain what the meaning is.

See my example above with parties A, B, C etc.

You seem to be going to some considerable trouble to avoid understanding the meaning.

I'm not surprised to hear that there are some fairly stupid Tories who don't understand it either. Haven't come across any "constitutional experts" who don't – maybe you could tell me which ones.

Perhaps the Tories you talk about are also in the business of giving their reactions prior to finding out what it is they are reacting to.

Berm Bandit

It just doesn't work like that.

If you think it does work like that, why do you think the last majority Lab Govt, or the Tory one before that etc etc. didn't just pass a motion that they could be in power forever with no further elections?

This isn't renaissance Italy.

The "debacle" exists only in your mind because you don't understand the proposal.

As I've pointed out – its a technical fix to stop a minor partner in a coalition bringing down the Govt.

If a Govt couldn't command a majority of the house it would still be out of business lickety-split.

Berm Bandit, I think it works like this:

Say you have parties A, B, C and D

They have 48% 5% 5% and 42% of the seats each.

Party A forms a coalition with party B – they have 53% of the seats.

Party B gets the hump with party A and there is a confidence vote.

Currently Parties B, C and D could vote against party A, the Govt would fall and we would have a general election.

BUT with the dissolution vote as proposed, what might happen is that after the confidence vote, party A could approach party C to form a different coalition (with a different set of compromises to the ones obtained by party B) again with 53% of the seats – another workable majority, and we wouldn't have a general election.

BUT if party C didn't want to support the Govt then it would still be game over and there would have to be an election because even though party A could win the dissolution vote they couldn't pass any further legislation as they wouldn't be able to win any other vote.

It seems pretty simple and reasonable when to me, and is only being proposed to stop minority parties in coalitions from bringing down the Govt unilaterally. In our current Govt, it's not more power to the Tories, it's less power to the Lib Dems.

OK?

We had some kids persistently knocking on the door a year or two ago. Not knocking and running off, knocking then being leary when we answered it.

So I went out with my caamera + big flash behind my back, whipped it out, took their pictures, then as they stood there calling me a pedophile and swearing at me, phoned the police. The kids ran off but the police came along recognised them then went to see their parents.

Seemed to work.

In our area, where the kids are more annoying than truly dangerous (I think) they seem to have a lot of bravado when they think they are anonymous, but not much after.

Saw, one of these kids with his mate after school a while later whilst I was with my own little kids. Stopped him in the street and asked him why he'd done it, what he thought it said about him, whether he thought it was OK to knock our door while I was putting our kids to bed etc. Embarrassed the little fcker in front of his mate and passing members of the public – ha ha.

It's a hardware thing.

Get a Mac 😀