They look like a pair of strict disciplinarians. Chief Whip's office?

However, many places are rediscovering their sense of community through the preservation and subsequent regrowth of their mother tongue. Welsh being the immediate example in Britain.

But is there a place (and money) for this to be policy driven?

For example, should everyone in the UK be taught a Celtic language from 3yrs (as they are at my kids school)

I've played around with this at the TT.

Faster shutter speeds just result in relatively staid looking shots, with even the wheel spokes frozen in the shot.

Panning at a slower shutter speed gives an excellent effect – truly captures the speed and excitement of the event.

Good job it's one of those reassuringly reliable German brands….

"All ice cream adverts should feature young children sucking and licking their yummy treat in a variety of seemingly innocent positions."

The other suggestions aren't really repeatable on here, but the Catholic Priest / tub of ice cream one puts the concept of the Catholic Church and Offensive into context.

Not) Leting old languages die?

You leave my speling and grammer out of it!! Reflects quaybord scills, not Inglish

the lever comes back to the bar until you pump it a few times, keeps getting a sticky piston too,

Exactly the problems I've had with the 5s and CRs

Dunno what the Church has to get upset about…

.. I mean, pretty young nun like that – bound to get fat eating ice cream all the time. 😉

Not sure if he has aged well – but I remember being in stitches on a train in about 1985, reading Tom Sharpes Wilt on High.

Probably "of it's time", but I remember greatly enjoying Sharpe's dark and cutting humour

The Throwback – Probably the most hilarious (and vicious) that I have read. My then girlfriend thought it was deeply offensive.

So…..this isn't about Fish then?

nah, yer Clutching at Straws there…

Had / have both. Bought the CRs as the bite points on the 5s went wacky after a few hundred miles – but then again, so did the CRs

Well, that's truly bizarre.

Plugged the laptop HDD into a spare desktop SATA port. It took about 3 hours for chkdsk to chunk through everything, and seemed to be doing an awful lot of deleting / reallocating / re-indexing….

… but at the end of it I could access the file structure and copy across the data I wanted to retain (mainly photos that hadn't been backed up elsewhere) to an archive drive.

Put drive back into the laptop, and whilst it wouldn't fully launch Windows, it would boot through to the repair console (where previously it wouldn't even read the HD / launch the OS)

SO, what happened?

I somewhat tongue in cheek blamed the Microsoft automatic update package – but seeing as there is no apparent hardware fault on the drive, what else could have caused such a catastrophic failure???

And, of course, MANY THANKS to the STW tech support collective 8)

Cougar – Yes, OEM recovery disk offers recover or exit – with recovery subsequently warning that C: will be erased 👿

Connecting to one of the SATA leads on the desktop sounds like the best bet. Not sure if there is a spare, but can always disconnect one of my data drives.

If nothing else, this should be the push I needed to get Win 7 on to the laptop to replace the OEM Vista – that or back to XP…

Is that exactly what it says? Can you post an exact error message?

I paraphrased…

A disk read error occured
Press Ctrl+Alt+Delete to restart

The new small Jag really does challenge my preconceptions.
Lovely looking car. Couldn't be doing with a saloon though.

The Lancaster contribution to the BBMF is in recognition of all the thousands of Bomber Command personnel who lost their lives.

I wholeheartedly agree with that.

My point was specifically regarding the recent BoB fly pasts. Spitfire / Hurricane "missing man" formation would have been be more appropriate.

Got that wrong then…!

I know it's all on the public purse (not the Vulcan)- but it mystifies me as to why the RAF have the BBMF and concentrate all their "heritage" effort on one distinct period.

OK WW2 and BoB in particular were defining moments for the RAF, but you'd think they would have a wider remit.

And whats with the Lanc flying around in celebration / memory of the Battle of Britain anyway?

Same effect as when the sun rises and sets…

Low in the horizon, so the light is passing through more of the denser lower atmosphere

Just read this thread…

Confused dot com???

Daytime running lights are / have been very contentious with the motorcyclists

TT

They look nice.

I must have a different car in mind then… 🙄

To me they empitomise Audi's (and Mercedes Benz') "me too" approach to styling – trying to capitalise on the overtly sportier market that used to be BMW's…

A5 / S5 look unecessarily brutish to my mind, no delicacy or refined touches. A4 (and to some extent A3) has gone the same way recently as well. Trying to look all muscular, masculine and aggressive

IIRC, this was discussed on mtb-wales some time last year.

I recall that it is one sign of a metabolic / dietary deficiency??

Unfortunately the old mtb-wales server is no more, so none of the old threads are accesible….

Time to re-issue the Classic Singletrack Dictionary shirt….

T or jersey – either will do. Nothing sums up mountainbiking better
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Please

Choices, choices…

A Basin looks good – wasn't one I'd previously heard of. Skiing to June, that pretty amazing!!

Always fancied Whistler or Banff / Lake Louise, but I guess the Canadian resorts will just make transfers longer / more of a pain to organise.

Heard The Only Living Boy In New Cross the other day on 6music. Cracking!! That was from the Love Album wasn't it?

Yes. Was playing that album in the car the other day – seems strangely appropriate for our times – deja vue and the political / economic cycle.

While you were out spreading the gospel
According to whatever you believed in at the time
Her majesty's axemen cameth and closed the hospital
The birthplace of out bonny baby Brian

Yesterday they took away our bus stop
Today they'll try and take our happy home
Tomorrow I'll be burned as a witch for playing punk rock
You picked a fine time to leave me on my own

If you have to ask you'll never get it but clearly you have no soul.

Quite the opposite – I know, but I don't know why, if that makes sense??

What is the appeal?

Why does everyone get hung up about the sound of the Merlin??

Please explain – after all, rational analysis would suggest it's just a bunch of aluminium and steel, much the same as any other vehicle. Is it the same as some folks getting excited about steam trains?

Currently got TrailBlaster 1.8s on. At under 400g (about 340 ish?) each they are very, very, quick.

Lose grip with the same rapidity too though, so can't see them staying on for much longer…

ooops, thats done it

I'd get told off in "civilised" lift queues 😳

Difficult, very difficult.

Stalingrad, by Anthony Beevor, possibly.

Why – it's both chilling and compelling at the same time. Breathtaking in so many ways – from the scope of Hitler's territorial ambition, matched only by his incompetence and intransigence when meddling with field commanders freedom of operation; the brutality, indifference and connivance of Stalin's regime, through to the human capacity for outright animal brutality, suffering, survival and humanity.

A true, epic, Russian tragedy set in a relatively modern European context. Makes you realise either how far we've come, or how close we could be if we slipped back…

sardine and strawberry jam

Could I, should I…

It would be VERY SILLY…

Folks seem to be ditching these at the mo V6 engined GT – high CO2 / Tax / fuel, but at under £9k….

Now to find a nice late low mileage red one…. 😛

lunge – the cures don't really work, they can't work, not once you've done it. Not when you know what your missing every winter. Not once ski sunday comes on the telly.

Dare you!

Should I get my coat?

No – first time I saw an Astra I thought the Giulietta had been launced early 🙁

Anyway, someone mentioned skiing – I'm no longer interested in cars 😉

Sorry 😳

Yes Zermatt – very good, excellent in fact. Every skiier should ski there once. Food and drink very pricey though – which is why staying in Cervinia is good. Swiss skiing and Italian hospitality

I'll have you know that I was cured…

…for 12 whole years

I'd put that particular addiction behind me.

My god it hurt for the first three years – friends and colleagues off skiing and me staying at home…. crawling up the walls every winter

STUFF your summer holidays

BUT, I was cured in the end – forgot all about it, I did.
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Until Mrs rkk01 suggested we take the kids skiing in 2008.

I was deeply sceptical, all new kit, fat skis and all, could I still do it, doubt, doubt, doubt…. and at the back of my mind – didn't want to start doing that white stuff again.

ONE TURN, that's all it took – one bloody turn, the exhillaration of letting the skis accellerate into the fall line for that first turn.

Mountain biking was my cure – the sop, the pseudo ski experience that I could sup on all year without going for the real thing, the same balance, the same attacking stance, getting on the ski or tyre edges, carving the turn, feeling the acceleration, the adrenaline, coursing through your veins, the concentration…

… but not the real thing…

not really