Yesterday, Cafe Tresor, South Croydon. Geezer holding court with his two mates explaining the finer points of post cold war real politik:

“So after the Ossetians invade Georgia, killing all them Russian Georgians, us and the americans make out it’s all Georgia’s doing and tell the Poles you want our missiles in your country or the Georgians are coming for you next.”

You should have heard his thoughts on Cyprus too.

Do a search on here. There’s been a load of knee injury / physio threads recently.

I’ve ridden there a few times not long after it opened – was just wondering if it had improved since then to warrant the ‘best in’ tag. Is it still just the one singletrack route then?

Ta, that’s what I thought.

Agree with him being an inspiration but as long as there is doubt as to whether he gains an advantage or not my feeling is he shouldn’t be allowed to compete.

How did the CAS assess whether he had an advantage or not? And as a consequence are there any rules on the design of his prosthetics? What happens if he gets a new improved set and knocks half a second off his PB?

Mostly what Rusty Mac said.

I’m recovering from an injury last December (tore ACL, PCL, medial and lateral meniscus and patella cartilage degeneration – i think that means getting old). Waiting time to see a NHS physio here is 20weeks so I went to a private one. He had an interest in biomechanics and works with pro golfers and footballers. He did various manipulation tests to assess potential issues then some more to assess the strength of the different muscle groups in my leg. He also checked on my stance and walking to see if the weak muscles had resulted in compensatory side effects (i was turning my ankle a bit). He then gave me a set of exercises to address the specific muscles, some using weights, some body weight and some with the big elastic band. He ran through the exercises with me too to make sure iwas dooing them properly (correct posture etc). Also recommendation was to build up the strength before restarting the functional activity like running. All in all a 45 minute consultation for about £40, so doesn’t have to be expensive, provided you don’t need the physio to hold your hand to make sure you do the exercises every day. By the time I actually see the knee specialist Ithink I’ll be fully recovered. 🙂

Edit: Also been doing the yoga thing. If you do this make sure you tell the instructor about your injury – some poses could be harmful. I have difficulty with kneeling for example.

You sound like a rude and angry person. Try some yoga or some scented candles to help you find some inner calm.

Jim is a waste of space blagger. Helen would walk it if the prize were to be an employee. But for a business partener I think LAS has his eye on Tom or Suzy. Tom is up his street with the gadgets/inventions but in the cosmetic/treatment episode LAS did like the massive margins available so Suzy could be on to winner (Mind you she didn’t do to well in that episode blaming the lack of take-up on every one in Birmingham being ‘so poor’ 🙂

I’m going for Suzy for the win. Got to support the Croydon girl.

But then went to Zara and tried on a pair of flat-fronted suit trousers and they fit; went back for the jacket a couple of days later.

You sound like a shop-lifter 🙂

Any moment now that Flashheart fella will be along to recommend you buy a pair of skis.

I’m organising a street party.

From low to high EOS60d, EOS50d, EOS40d,

Don’t think that’s quite right:
the 60D is the newer version of the 50D isn’t it?

I think for Canon it goes:
4 digit – entry level e.g. 1100D
3 digit – low end, e.g. 500D, 550D, 600D
2 digit – mid-range e.g. 50D, 60D
1 digit – high end, e.g. 7D, 5D, 1D.

Within the lower and mid-range the larger the number = the newer and/or better model. Then what DonSimon says for the top end 7D then 5D then top of the pile 1D.

No idea about Nikon though.

There’s one way to be sure.
Put her in a boxing ring with a giant Ukrainian.
If she loses, it’s broken.

Cos he used his stealth ship to implicate the Chinese in the sinking of a British destroyer – bringing us to the brink of war. If it wasn’t for some sterling work by MI6 what’s left of the Royal Navy wouuld be lying at the bottom of the South China Sea by now.

Isn’t it incredible that in 2011 this legal tender is still treated with such suspicion outside Scotland?

Is it incredible though? Seems perfectly logical to me. I’ve no idea what Scotch money is supposed to look like so I wouldn’t know a dodgyMcdodge one from the real Mckoy.
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Yeah I know, Scottish not scotch. 🙂

I hope your not a salesman in your day-job.

I used to have the right hots for the girl in Senser. Happy days.

Mink:
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Polecat/ferret:
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Pine Marten:
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Gentle pootle on a Reigate Hill to Box Hill loop Saturday afternoon.

pretty comprehensive shooting down of Ernie’s argument by Bernardine Healy, former president and chief executive of the American Red Cross

No. The argument that the different reporting definitions means the US infant mortality rates are artifically high compared to other countries has no bearing on Ernie’s post. He only compared the US rates against those of England & Wales. We use the same definitions as the americans, so the comparison is valid. The CDC’s own report (i think IanMunro has referenced it above) accepts that reporting diffferences alone do not account for the high US rates and that it is an issue partly due to the high rate of pre-term babies in the US. Even full-term US babies have a higher infant mortality rate than those of most other developed countries.
Possibly a better overall outcome indicator of healthcare related mortality is ‘avoidable mortality’ (also called amenable mortality). These are deaths from selected specific causes and/or age groups which ought not to occur given appropriate and timely medical intervention. An ex-colleague Prof Martin Mckee has done a lot of work on this including international comparisons, mostly in Europe and the ex-eastern block, can’t recall any US comparisons off the top of my head. My own experience is with birth, death and cancer rates within England and Wales.

I also want to ask her what exactly it was that she learnt from the Dalai Lama. Humility, selflessness, respect for all living things? Or self-aggrandisement, arrogance, selfishness and deceitfulness?

Her global consultancy has it’s registered office in a terraced house in Leicester, I won’t need the coach ticket now – it’s only a 10min walk from where I work

You just wait your turn MikeG, I didn’t go to all this trouble for sloppy seconds. Anyone know how to remove the speed limiter from a coach?

Right then, I’ve got 5 coaches with various pick up points in the north, 3 coaches from the south and a taxi picking up a couple of parisian shopkeepers from the eurostar terminal. If we can get another 50 peeps the nice people at Trunki will do us a special edition Boostapak ‘Melody-Breaker’ for a bargaintastic 35 quid. One condition – I get first dibs.

@m_f
Part of me doesn’t want me to share, it wants sole credit for her demise. But that would make me just like her, thinking only of myself. So yes, we could put out an open invite, hire a coach, pack a picnic and some beers and make a day out of it.

what el gato negro said. You get better food in the particulares and your hosts are always really friendly. If you go to Vinales try and get a couple of days on Cayo Levisa,a few little bundalows on a little island just of the coast.

Even if it has no other practical purpose you could use it to bludgeon that Melody to a pulp.

Years ago in one of my previous jobs, the chief executive got in one her of her posh friends to (cough) facilitate the organisation away-day. This woman had just returned from an ‘inspirational’ trip to central Africa. Her ice-breaker was to teach us a couple of verses of an african folk song, some sort of Watusi version of ‘Micheal row the boat ashore’. We were then split into four groups, the first group starting the song then the other groups starting staggered one bar apart (disclaimer: i’m musically illiterate, it may have been more than one).
Not content with this we were then asked to release our inhibitions by breaking out of our groups and walking, still singing, around the conference room. ‘Smile at your colleagues! Dance if you want to. Express yourselves!’ she exhorted us.
Cue some apathetic shuffling (public sector- we’re all idle wasters don’t you know) and some reluctant jazz hands from the more extrovert amongst us.
I’m guessing that bonding through group embarrassment was a cutting edge management tool back then.

I’ve worked in the public sector for 20 years (NHS, civil service, university, back in the NHS). About a year ago I was approached by a private sector company and offered a job doing similar sort of work at a similar level. The private company was offering about 20% more on the basic salary + company car or £5K car allowance. On the downside I would have lost about 10 days holiday, plus employers pension contributions would have been about 5% of salary instead of 15% (and the private pension would not have been fixed benefits but subject to the vagaries of the markets). I sat down and worked it all out in terms of pay and benefits earned per day worked and they came out about equal. Things like hours worked per week and flexible working practices were also similar. The decider for me was a combination of location and keeping my holidays, so I stayed in the public sector.

molgrips, Google translate is not your friend – manchmal

Weil Ich Schnulle geliebt habe.
Aber jetzt bin Ich nur ManchmalSchnulleficker. 🙂

I quite like the look of Marty McFly’s mum when she was young so I think I’d don some blue suede shoes, quiff up the hair and head back to the school prom.

fat people are bad. bald people are bad. brown people are bad. Drivers are bad. cyclists are bad. middle class people are bad. working class people are bad. women are bad. men are bad. chavs are bad. bus drivers are bad. help me here…

ooh! ooh! I know! I know!
Michael Jackson. He was Bad.

Some **** has popped all the bubbles in my bubble wrap!!!! God that makes me MAD.

Given you’ve phrased it as a question rather than a statement, I’d suggest that you’re probably being more than polite enough already.

James Milner’s attempt at making like a wall in the England v Switzerland game.

Jean-Claude, Pierre and Henri are taking a walk through the french countryside. Jean-Claude looks over a hedge into a field, gasps and says “Mon Dieu! Pierre, come here! Look. There is a man in the field who is making love to a dead woman.”
Pierre looks over hedge “Sacre bleu! you are right. Henri! Come here. Look. There is a man in the field who is making love to a dead woman”.
Henri walks over, looks over the hedge, takes off his glasses, gives them a wipe, puts them back on, takes another look and says “You are mistaken, mes amis. She is not dead. She is English”.

Pamela Anderson’s Barbed Wire = Casablanca

Wow

carricks been taking lessons from scholes on tackling