To be fair, not many 64 year olds could get away with dressing like that.

If you’re looking on-line then Wiggle usually have some good deals. But if you’ve never worn Salomon before I’d recommend a real-world shop like Blacks or Cotswold Outdoor as I find some of the sizing a bit random.

whats the point, just buy a second battery

Great for an old-style mobile phone, but if anyone can come up with a way of changing the battery on a smartphone while your tracking app is still running I’ll be very impressed.

As the only 26er bike on test, the Cannondale benefited from the nimblest handling feel and quickest acceleration.

It does make you wonder what people are looking for in a bike if it’s not this.

She’s have been far better off with a mac or so it seems

I suspect tablets are the future for users like this. Edit: and judging by W8 I think Microsoft see things this way too.

There’s a degree of un-learning to do if you come from a Windows environment, but the true test will be after you use it for a while and then go back to Windows. You may then find yourself banging your head against a brick wall, or on the other hand you may have become so infused with the Microsoft way of doing things that you don’t notice the difference.

btw don’t forget there’s a camera in the iMac, as you don’t know the machine or what’s installed on it then if you’re paranoid you might want to cover that up…

We have exactly the same thing – extension off the side of the house with garage/utility room and no record of planning or building regs. When we bought we had to get a waiver of a covenant from our next door neighbours on it, and we’ve since consulted a solicitor about it who told us all we need to do if we sell is take out insurance to cover the cost of any subsequent issues regarding planning for the buyer.

As Stoner says building regs is not retrospective but as I understand it significant change of use, e.g. to a kitchen, would require building regs approval and it’s possible you’d have to do some upgrading to insulation etc. We’ve not touched our extension for that reason.

Like the OP I bought some cheapo £13 wire-bead Barons to try out for the winter mud, for which they were very good for the price if you can put up with the drag. I’ve just been to have a look at them (they’re not on the bike at the moment) and the sidewall construction looks completely different – it’s got a sort of diagonal cross-hatch pattern and looks as good as new and is showing no signs of cracking. Definitely worth sending them back to where you got them from. Does make me wonder – are there such things as fake tyres?

They’ve got a UK banking license so covered by the FSCS, so ok for deposits up to £85K, not so sure about the safety of any money in Santander shares though.

Vista was perfectly usable from Service Pack 1, but Win 7 got rushed out because Microsoft knew Vista had been irrevocably damaged by bad press and FUD, as the Mojave Experiment shows.

A cynic might say that it was quite a smart move by Microsoft to market Vista SP3 as Windows 7…

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/windows/products/security-essentials

Don’t try and use anything else at the same time, they rarely play nicely together.

http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/%5B/url%5D

There’s not a huge difference between them these days, use whatever you’re comfortable with. If it’s just going too slowly you probably have other unrelated problems.

Had some great snow in Switzerland last week – major dumps earlier on and skiing up to my armpits in fresh powder some days. But by Friday it was 5C at 2000m in the Urner Alps, and 30C at Zurich airport on Saturday as we left. The season there hasn’t just come to a gradual close, it’s switched directly to summer and everyone was getting their bikes out!

There’s another way in which archery is similar to cycling; at any event there will be 2 competitions going on, one for the best score and one for the flashiest/newest/most expensive kit. I used to shoot with a member of the British Olympic team, he usually won both.

If you go down the back garden route (which I wouldn’t advise) check your public liability insurance carefully, arrows go astray very easily.

Poploc is a waste of time, doesn’t do much when it’s working and is a pain when it jams up; you’re better off without it. It’s triumph of marketing over design, IMHO.

If you go for the separate pump be careful about the noise, particularly if you use it for all the bathroom taps. We have a “conventional” shower pump that used to do all the taps in the bathroom; the noise like Concorde taking off every time anyone washed their hands drove me round the bend so now it only feeds the shower.

We also now have a so-called “digital” shower like this, which is a far superior thing that sits in the airing cupboard and is virtually silent.

I’ve been turned away by a PADI diving centre despite having a letter from my GP saying I was ok. Apparently PADI list asthma as a contra-indication or something, even though my managed asthma is probably less of a risk than the latent asthma I must have had when I used to dive a lot. :(

I got asthma in my late 40s, started with a cough that just didn’t go away, went to the doctor after a few weeks and did all the peak flow tests etc which showed nothing, was given a salbutamol inhaler to manage the symptoms, went skiing and it all went away in the clear-ish air of the alps. Then went back to work commuting on that mobile plague-pit the London Underground, got a cold followed by a chest infection and suddenly found one day I couldn’t walk up a flight of stairs without getting out of breath. A 1 week course of steroids fixed that for about 4 weeks before I started coughing and rattling again and then it was back to the doctor for a diagnosis of late-onset asthma triggered by virus infections.

I now have to take fluticasone but otherwise it has no effect on what I do apart from having to give up scuba diving (PADI has problems with asthmatics, BASI are somewhat more enlightened), and I’ve never had another “attack”. My GP, who is a doctor to the British Olympic squad, doesn’t seem to think it should have any effect on performance if it’s managed properly.

I do seem to come across more cases of this late-onset asthma thing in people these days – no idea why.

Medical information is of course classified as sensitive personal information under the data protection act, disclosure of which can in theory lead to a prison sentence – I think if you were so minded you could really wind you boss up on this!

They shouldn’t really do that without your permission and without warning you – see e.g Halford v UK. But good luck if you try to take them on – going to the ECHR is pretty expensive and as others have said you’ve probably violated policies!

Does cloning mess up software installed on it?

I seem to recall (it’s not in front of me, doing this from a different machine) that you can either clone the whole machine, virtual disc and all, or you can just clone the VM using the same virtual disc as the original. I’ve only done the former and it doesn’t mess up software installs, it creates a complete copy of the machine state so you can use it to roll back to a known working state.

The latest set of Windows updates killed my Windows 8 VM. I haven’t dug into exactly which update causes the problem or why but if you want to allow it to update I’d recommend cloning the VM first just in case.

Some old data on loss through leakage in urban pipe networks in Europe – UK figures should have improved since then –

Edit: And OFWAT’s rules –

We require the water companies to operate at the sustainable economic level of leakage, which identifies the level of leakage that gives consumers the best value for money. It compares the cost of reducing leakage to the costs of maintaining a balance between supply and demand in other ways, such as developing a new water resource, additional metering or promoting the efficient use of water.

Worth looking at Columbus Direct

Last time I looked at them they specifically excluded search and rescue I seem to recall.

OP – On your list of things you need from insurance you didn’t include personal liability – there have been some nasty stories about skiers being held responsible for avalanches they’ve caused and in particular injuries and worse to others.

The most inclusive policies I’ve found for ski mountaineering are Snowcard and the BMC or SCGB policies.

last time Mrs R and I went to a large Swedish furniture store there were queues at the few opened manned checkouts but the automated ones were taped off. When she asked why they told her they didn’t have enough staff to man the automated ones as they needed watching closely because of the amount of “wastage”. Does make you wonder where the savings are and whether the whole thing’s been thought through.

What were you using to watch what they were actually up to?

The remote admin software they used on mine was fairly verbose; they’re relying on you not watching it and generally not knowing much about it. They try to get you to keep a browser window open to hide what they’re doing but if you keep closing that (they keep trying to re-open it!) it’s fairly obvious what’s going on. It’s all very primitive with no real stealth; they’re not after the knowledgeable user, it’s more aimed at grannies etc.

Do you just have to go to some funny website and then they raid your computer for a while?

Basically yes. If you let them, the basic process seems to be that they get you to download some remote admin software and give their “specialist” admin rights to your PC. The person on the phone then tries to get you to use one of many free remote control web sites so that she can “show you what’s wrong”. Meanwhile the tech in the background is raiding your machine, on mine they started with a memory dump, downloaded the system logs and various system files, went through the installed software and were in the process of downloading the user files when I cut them off.

I get the impression that the call centre part doesn’t know what’s going on and really thinks they’re helping you. It’s the people in the background that are doing the really dodgy stuff.

I had them on for nearly an hour the other day while they tried to “fix” a clean copy of Windows 8 in a VM. Got bored in the end. It was interesting to watch their “specialist” try to download most of the contents of the machine while the woman tried to keep me distracted by trying various remote control web sites that didn’t work!

Just another Balls-up, according to Guido[/url] who seems to have a copy of an email chain showing how they hope no-one will notice.

I think it’s a mixture of clay and road scrapings. Not entirely sure though. Yesterday it had some substantial hoof prints in it, so I’m guessing it won’t stay looking like that for long.

It’s not actually paved – it’ll be a mud-fest next time it rains, just like the Tring ones.

I came across that on Sunday, bit of a surprise but I’m in 2 minds as to whether it’s a bad thing – that bit was mostly unusable anyway as the gulley was too deep to pedal in and it had several fallen trees. I’m treating it as a more convenient route back up; if you want something interesting coming down that way most people used one of the parallel footpaths anyway.

Is it for easier farm access or something?

Strangest thing about it is that it’s only been “improved” about half way up, so no. Probably more to do with horsey access.

I’ve used Squirt over 2 winters now and my drivetrain is certainly lasting longer than it did with any wet lubes I’ve tried, which tend to turn into grinding paste in the winter. I’ve now invested in one of the big bottles so I’m committed to it until that runs out! I always lube the chain after a ride ready for the next one unless the bike needs a real hosedown, in which case you obviously have to wait until everything is dry.

We’ve used this with 2 layers of Knauf Soundshield with some success, but it’s not a particularly cheap solution and if you’re doing any of it yourself don’t underestimate the weight – about 13kg/m2 for the plasterboard and 17kg/m2 for the acoustic mat.

Get the train. Easy, quick, cheap, frequent and the station is literally underneath the airport concourse. There are ticket machines on the concourse.

An the alternative is to vote for Ed Miliband as PM yes

And Ed Balls as Chancellor. Now that really scares me…

If you earn £200K and pay – say – a modest 5% pension

The taxman would take around £70K so nearer a THIRD than a half

You’re forgetting NI, which takes it up to 80K. If you allow for the employers NI then it comes to pretty near 50% of your wage bill in tax.

Proper explanation for grown-ups

I guess this chrome-free metro-esque look is all the rage now, but the TNR really does jar.

If your an elder PC yes you will get TNR if you’re Android you get Droid fonts.

I get something remarkably similar to TNR on iOS 5.1 as well, so it’s not a PC related thing.

Edit: on WebOS it looks the same as it used to – what’s going on?

Verbier. Day pass – 78chf!!!! Lunch – 30chf!!!!

6 day Verbier 4 Vallees pass is an eye-watering CHF351 now. Probably goes some way to explaining why the resort was practically empty last week despite full snow coverage down to the main resort level with enough fresh snow to make it interesting off-piste and brilliant sunshine most days. Beer in our hotel wasn’t too bad at around CHF7 a pint but I’m told that in some of the more popular clubs a round of 4 drinks came to over CHF100.