IANADO, but just reading these responses to the OP makes me love the things all the more.

As you were.

I have many favourites, yet even if I stopped listening to them after the ZooTV Tour, I would be hard-pressed to think of a more monumental album than U2’s The Joshua Tree.

Regardless of what you think of U2, it has to be up there as one of the most – if not the most – pivotal of the decade.

Thanks for responding, @fossy.

I will be looking for advice on precisely how I should seek payment. Which is one of the reasons I need an accountant.

I have care of a charity, but I also take in a small income on the side. The question is: should I register as a sole trader, and so take two (very small) streams of income, or should I direct all that secondary stream into the charity and have the charity pay me?

In any case, i don’t expect you to answer; it’s just that these are the questions I’m facing.

Bump

Thanks for that. I genuinely don’t expect to get much, considering the age of the frame. The groupset, though, is 2019, and everything else is 2017 or 2018. In other words, it’s not as old as it sounds. The problem is, I know the bike will be judged by its ‘frame age’.

Northeastern Germany. Probably somewhere like Rostock or Lübeck.

In. A. Heartbeat.

I had joined IMBA in Canada in 2002, and wanted to remain active when I moved to the UK in 2003. If I remember correctly, the STW site used to host the IMBA-UK forum back then, and so I created an account. Then, while I became very active on mtb-wales.com, I would swing over to this site when things got boring or too contentious over there.

Eventually, when mtb-wales.com died, I moved over to STW full-time, and I have been here ever since.

@leffeboy, I do indeed. And plan on being there next week for the first time in three years.

I’m much leaner and fitter than that bloke.

I’m not. :(

TJ, those are gorgeous pictures. Keep ’em coming.

I should add that I’m on TJ’s side re: the cold. Heat wave be damned. Once evening falls, it’s jumper/jacket/proper shirt for me!

@poopscoop: just say the word, and the door will be open! Always room here in Cardiff for another one…

I’ve got a meeting at 10:00, but will message you after. Probably around 11:30.

It’s a bit late for me to be reporting in, but it was great to meet you, @TJ, in the flesh! @molgrips out-did himself with those sausages, but I feel like I dropped the ball not bringing beer. Tomorrow, however, is another day, so we can always make up for it.

I just wanted to pop in and say that I hope my OP didn’t suggest a judgement on eMTBs. @molgrips already converted me to accepting them as valid.

@tjagain: I asked a question based on something I read. That’s it. Are you suggesting that the very question itself implies judgement or nastiness?

Mystery solved as a result of some of your advice. Thank you.

I was able to identify the property on the Land Registry website, and although it cost me a whopping £3, I was able to get the name and address of the owner.

I have now written them a letter enquiring as to whether or not they might sell.

Fingers crossed!

The rates would be paid by an occupant but thats not necessarily the owner – its quite unusually for businesses to own their premises.

This may be an odd one, in that the business is actually an add-on to what was once an end-of-terrace house. I had heard that it was a long-standing family business, and so assumed that the family had also lived above it at one time. I could be wrong though. I also heard that the business owner had fairly severe mental health issues, which is why he just sort of abandoned it and never returned.

I don’t know if any such assumptions or rumours – if true – would have any effect on my search, but they may be worth factoring in.

None of them are evil. By international standards they’re all just a slight whisker away from the views of our mainstream left of centre party in the UK.

Actually, I don’t agree with you in the least. I think that the current crop of Tories have been instrumental in undermining the centuries-old liberal consensus that had only been interrupted in a like manner prior to WWII. And the reason that is appropriately termed ‘evil’ is that it represents an attack on an institution that has brought about peace, the welfare state, and taken centuries to develop.

The OP was not trying to stir anything up at all; he was calling on other left-leaning forum folk to express whom they thought might be the least likely to continue the present, destructive, course. The thread title made that pretty clear.

If you don’t think it’s destructive, then you probably aren’t the sort of person for whom the thread was started.

Would you like anthrax or botulism?

I agree with you, TJ. I just want the one I can survive long enough for the cure to get voted in.

Ideally, both at the same time would be great, but I think the latter option may be too risky. I mean, what if someone like Liz Truss manages to stumble through and win a majority?

[/shiversdownspine]

We are. I will not be around until the 4th of June, but will schedule it for a day as soon as possible afterward.

A city I haven’t yet been to, but looks absolutely amazing, is Gdańsk. I tend to be very interested in former Hanseatic cities, and Gdańsk looks a notch above the rest.

The OP is not currently at his desk.

@midlifecrashes, can I make a book suggestion?

The venerable political philosopher, Larry Siedentop’s ‘Inventing the Individual: The Origins of Western Liberalism’ is superb, and suggests that the very notion of the ‘individual’ and that each has a fundamental integrity, is a Christian idea without which there would no Western Civilisation.

Now, I have no idea if Siedentop is a Christian or not (I suspect from his surname that he is Jewish), but he is a philosopher who has earned his stripes, and I would be interested in what you make of his historical argument.

Whatever you make of it, it’s a great book.

Is that a world apart from what I was scratching at earlier regarding an innate desire to fit in? (Genuine question, I’m not sure if that’s what you mean.) ‘Tribe’ is an excellent term.

No, I think you’re right. It’s just that ‘fitting in’ refers only to the first half (that is, the ‘communion’ side), and doesn’t acknowledge the second half, which I would posit is ‘transcendence’.

Here is a thesis for you. rock concerts and sports matches on a large scale are utilising the same parts of the human mind as big religious events Reasserting tribal identity, sing a song or two, be part of a mass of people all doing the same thing and feeling the same emotion. Religion just taps into this part of the psyche

@tjagain, you’re nailing it this evening. Seriously. Your thesis is one that I have thought of many times, but from the opposite point of view: that a rock concert (or other, similar events) is representative of the human longing for communion (inter-personal), and the transcendent. I see that as the human religious impulse. I am not trying to prove anything by saying that; only acknowledging your excellent point, and suggesting that while I think you are right about it, there is another way of interpreting it.

I have not read the whole thread but I have debated religion with you before Saxonrider

You have indeed, and I have appreciated it!

I am not sure what you hope to get from this?

Interesting conversation and camaraderie. That’s it.

I am, as I’ve said many time before, interested above all in accuracy. And in the midst even of the discussion above, there has been much inaccuracy. Not because of any sort of ill-will on anyone’s part; just because the history and nature of religion is a topic that often engenders much discussion but less real and rigorous study. So, a round-table discussion or pub night or whatever, in which people can throw their ideas and/or questions and/or arguments onto the table, and I can try to answer them honestly and openly seems like it could be a good thing.

I find it vaguely entertaining to debate religion but as a rationalist / scientist I find it all bunkum – and that’s despite an Anglican upbringing

Fair enough. I, of course, don’t think there is any contradiction inherent in having faith and believing in rationalism and science, but may obviously do.

I can certainly present you plenty of debating questions but at the end of the day its dancing on the head of a pin. either you have faith or you have not.

This final sentence is probably one of the most important premises uttered in this entire thread.

Most of the time I can’t tell mine’s there and it’s been that way since a few months after it was put in (about 7 years ago now). The only thing that gets it/me going is when one of the kids tries to climb on my shoulder and presses the flesh over it down, hard, on one of the edges of the plate.

This is my experience to a ‘tee’. The only difference is that mine happened about 12 years ago now.

It was also suggested to me that I should have it removed at some point, but a surgeon friend of mine said not to bother. Even if I even fell and injured it again, the plate would not pop out or cause extra grief.

Can I just pop my head back up to say that it is precisely this sort of stuff that I was/am hoping we might discuss at the virtual ‘pub night’. :)

The single biggest question must be – how (and why) did a Canadian living in Cardiff become a priest in the Russian orthodox church?

Simple. Mother is British. Father is Russian-German (ethnic Germans who had colonised Southern Russia (today’s Ukraine) in the 18th century). My paternal grandparents spoke both German and Ukrainian. Both sets of grandparents emigrated to Canada – the latter as refugees from the Bolsheviks.

Lots of ethic compatriots also became Orthodox.

I did my PhD and post-doc in Wales, and stayed.

Mystery solved.

Maybe we could set up a semi-regular thing like we did with the quiz (grat plug, next one coming soon), some form of ‘ask me anything’ affair with folk with interesting backgrounds?

I love this idea. Being an unrepentant nerd, I love learning more about pretty much everything. Especially maths.

Saw it was suggesting that it’s done for money and immediately thought scam and religion being used for financial gain. This makes me feal very uneasy about it all now and I’m out.

As it’s £2 per session, plus potentially more, is this commercial advertising?

Thanks to @Cougar for the vote confidence above, but it seems I need to reiterate what I have said elsewhere in the thread: I will be/would be doing this anyway. Money or no money. That link was a poll to see what would garner the most positive response. If 100% of respondents said they wouldn’t attend unless it was free, then it would be free. My first interest is in conversation.

That said, there are medical doctors on this forum who kindly give advice when we ask, and when we have had historical/religious discussions on here, I have tried to share things that I know about. If one of those medical doctors ran some kind of online teaching session for us online or in person, would it be unreasonable to ask for a pound or two towards expenses? It would depend, wouldn’t it? I mean, if they were only doing their NHS duty, then we might expect them to get paid by some other source; but if they did it just because they had a group of internet friends/colleagues whom they thought might be interested, then maybe a pound or two wouldn’t be so unreasonable. So I happen to have an expertise. Even if a person has no religious interest, they might at least appreciate the historical expertise I bring to the table. In which case, is it unreasonable to seek a couple of quid by way of remuneration? If so, let me know by responding with one of the options I included in the survey.

Scam? Good grief. I’ve never scammed anyone in my life.

EDIT: Just saw @colournoise’s post, above. Again, I teach online. I write books. Sometimes I get paid; sometimes I don’t. If most people seem happy throwing in a couple of quid, I’ll go with that, and be glad that I can put it toward my next mortgage payment. All £20 of it. If not, I’ll still run the session, and thoroughly enjoy it. I can’t believe that this is being seen as an issue! But I guess it’s a learning process for me.

No offence. All religon is cult based fantasy. Religon is devisive and exclusive, things which in other areas are considered negative and bad. Sensible discussion based on facts (i know thats relative) and tolerance is the only answer to humanities problems. The church of “?” only helps it’s own. And tolerance means im happy for you to believe what you want..

No offence taken, but I have sought to treat precisely such objections in past threads, and it’s why I thought some kind of friendly, beer-based session online would be a good forum for discussion. Trying to deal with everything that could be said while typing with my thumbs on an iPhone just doesn’t feel adequate!

You didn’t solicit usernames in the form, was that intentional?

Yes. The survey I have posted here is really just a ‘market survey’ to see if it’ll be worthwhile. By the looks of it, I’ll be able to create an Eventbrite event in the next day or two, and get people to sign up properly then.

@andrewh and anyone else wondering if they’d be welcome:

Yes is the answer. I am not looking for any ‘type’ of person, or questions, or people who are especially ‘open’ or ‘closed’ to faith and religious ideas; just people who like engaging with ideas full stop. And as far as I can tell, that includes most of the people on here.

That is what surprises me!! The univeristy doesn’y pay you??

Not a penny! 😁

I was appointed an honorary (non-stipendiary) basis, and because I was working in another institution for many years, I never needed to be paid. I haven’t been with that other institution for a few years now, so a bump up the scale somewhere would be nice!

But to be fair, I love what I do and I love my research, so I would do it anyway.

@IHN: Russian. There is a Greek parish, two Russian, and one Romanian parish here in Cardiff. Also a few Syrian/Indian and Ethiopian/Eritrean communities.

@Cougar: simple answer? SaxonRider’s pizza fund. More complex answer? I run a parish, serve as chaplain at the university, am a research fellow there, and teach a lot, and don’t earn money for any of it, so teaching online and getting Patreon subscribers is my only income. That said, I do what I do anyway, whether I get paid or not. Which is why I put down a few options.

I figure this could be worth it, whether or not people pay.

Precisely the sort of thoughtful, scholarly remark I was hoping for.

Huh? What did I miss?

Honestly, other than missing PerchyPanther’s wit, I don’t find this place much different than it has ever been. Mostly decent folk with helpful stuff to say, and a few slightly more eccentric folk. I could have found the religion threads problematic, but realised that, for the most part, even the most opinionated people were just interested, and it was a matter of striking the right tone.

Long live the forum.

Ah, OK, a cruise. As you were. 46kg is wayyyy too much

To be fair, I need to have (at least) a dinner suit, a couple of proper jackets and trousers, plus the clothes I will wear when out and about, and shoes for each type of occasion. And of course I will need clothes for the gym!

Thanks for all these comments.

We travel quite a bit, but seldom by plane (when we’re together, that is), and this time, it’s just that we’re flying to Malta to start an 8-day cruise. We would never carry that much luggage otherwise. We’ll need a much wider array of clothes than normal.