If the snow drifts its pretty much impossible to clear the road and then keep it clear so that normal cars can get up safely. And if they do get up they have to be sure that they can get back down again safely. Having grown up as a scottish skier, I learnt to be patient – maybe you should try the same thing.

Is anyone keeping a count?

Not counting exactly, but I think that is at least 60 of us so far qualified, with a few more nearly qualified. It’d be interesting to know what the total number of STWers is and then we can see what percentage of us are have Ph.Ds. I imagine it is a pretty tiny percentage though.

Dr STS – PhD in Glaciology and numerical ice sheet and erosion modelling

I think we had some (maybe 8-10) slates done on our terraced house earlier in the year for about £150. Our roofer gave a free quote and then came back within a week and fixed the lot.

And on our other house (a 5 storey flat) I fixed a roof problem myself. We had a major leak last weekend. Waited til the next day and went and had a look (5 storeys is a long way up!). Replaced about 5 tiles that had shifted and patched and repaired a load of flashing. Would have cost us £100’s to get a roofer in. I fixed it for… £11 (or less than £2 per flat)! We had 2 climbing harnesses and rope so we could be safe – ladders weren’t an option up there. No leaks since despite horrible weather so I am happy…

It doesn’t cost £6k a year though.

Its close to that actually – once full econimic costing is covered. I.e. cost of staff (not just lecturers but admin etc. etc.) buildings, IT etc. So the £6k would reflect the economic cost of putting a student through a course. Because education has been cheap for years it just seems like a lot now the full cost is exposed. In reality that is not a lot of money for an education that will serve you for the rest of your career as well as a life experience that will develop potential in other ways. Maybe students will also be inclined to work harder on their degree if they are having to pay more – at the moment we see a lot of srudents here being bone idol. A bit of money stress might focus the mind…

You’re assuming your kids will do courses which command the highest rate. There is a ‘soft cap’ at £6k moving to a hard cap at £9k. So you might not need quite as much dosh as you think. Also, your kids might not want to go to university…

Start saving now just in case, but I suspect that before all of your kids reach university the government (in whatever flavour it is in by then) will change the goalposts again…

I agree it does seem excessive rates considering the teachers salaries are largely covered by research grants – WTF do they need the money for ?

Junkyard – this is balls I’m afraid. You are assuming lecturers get paid 100% of money for doing research and that they can therefore teach for free. Many lecturers do not get any funding for research (there is a limited government pot for research money and you have to bid for it) and when they do it does not account for 100% of their time. 20% of their time would be more likely. It costs money to teach and someone has to pay – a university cant just do it for free… The costs in the Browne report do reflect the real cost of doing a degree accounting for the pay for lecturers, cost of infrastructure etc. its just that the true cost has been hidden from view for years because the government have been paying instead.

As someone who takes my bike on xc trains every day I have a lot of experience with this.

1) You don’t need to book (there are 3 bike spaces and only 2 of them are bookable). However, it is advisable to book (doesnt cost anything) because inevitably there will be other people with bikes.

2) You put the bike on yourself – coach D I think. There are hooks to hang the bike by its front wheel. There are some unreservable seats just insie the coach too – so you might be able to sit near your bikes without too much trouble.

3) I stand next to my bike to make sure it doesnt get nicked, but then I only travel for 15 mins (Newcastle to Durham).

4) I am not sure if you can book a bike space using cross country’s own website, which in the past meant that if you wanted to book a bike space, you had to go to the station and buy the ticket. However, I now go onto the East Coast website and book onto the xc train and there is a bike reservation button (small – near the bottom of the seat reservation page). You have to reserve a seat to enable the bike reservation button.

5) If you bring a bike lock then you should be able to lock the bike to the train, thus avoiding theft. I would recommend a U-Lock along with a cable so you can loop through the wheels. Probably worth it if you’re going all the way to Leamington Spa.

All in all – although it sounds complicated, its pretty easy.

That is a good idea – I will see if that's possible…

Wierd. I am having problems with firefox. It is DEAD SLOW in loading any website that seems to look for ajax.googleapis.com (i.e. most websites!). For example, it can take ages and multiple refreshes to try and get it to load the singletrack forums properly. Google Chrome seems to sort it, but I prefer firefox. Any ideas how I can fix firefox? It is the latest version. And it makes no difference whether I switch on or off the link scanning etc. for AVG anti-virus.

I found that 'The hollow chocolate bunnies of the apocalypse' was great, although that could have been because I was stuck in the middle of Iceland on fieldwork and was going slightly mad… and the armageddon trilogy is great too – especially Barry.

Great place + good riding nearby. I still have an empty flat there at the moment – need a place to rent/buy?!

As Jonb says I think newcastle mountainbike club (www.midaircrisis.co.uk) is going to Cow Green Reservoir tomorrow. They would be happy to see you – turn up at Terry's house (map on site) for 8am I think. I still dont know if I can make it tomorrow, but that would be a quality ride which will probably take most of the day once you travel there and get back…

I knackered the spindle on my eggbeater ti's (my own fault – over-zealous tightening of the nut, not a failure during use). Sent them to 2pure and they installed new rebuild kit and new axles (both of them) and sent them back to me for £35. I thought that was pretty good value really.

I would simply print them out and have them as backup notes. I do this for any presentation I give – be it job interview or conference presentation. I tend to find that if I have rehearsed enough I wont need the notes. But having the notes there does mean that I am less stressed about forgetting stuff.

Also, if the notes are on the screen in front of you, then you will be tempted to read off them, which can tend to make you sound rather wooden/uninteresting.

The low-tech solution is often the best IMHO…

I liked mine. Very good on the climbs due to the fact you could lock out the rear travel (which simultaneously steepened the geometry too). Was a great marathon bike – fast and light. The genius model nowadays is similar looking. Try before you buy!

Funnily enough VMH were on my list of possibles already!

Thanks all!

STS.

I suspect you have to declare the house as your 'primary residence' to avoid CGT. To do so, I think you just write to your local ( to your primary residence) tax office and say so. Check on hmrc.gov.uk – there is stuff on there about it.

Cynic-al – I can't really use your name as I guess you aren't known everyday as 'cycnic-al'! In any case – dont need to use your name – I will give them a call and see what they say… cheers.

MrGrim, thanks for that. Yeah – I imagine I will use solicitors who use ESPC as that seems to be where the bulk of property is advertised. TJ – thanks too – a BS-free solicitor is probably a rare thing!

MrGrim, I need someone to do the whole shebang – valuation (although I have already investigated what I think is an average price), paperwork, viewings, marketing etc. as I don't live in Edinburgh nowadays so can only make occasional trips up to the flat…

In scotland, we use solicitors who have property departments as 'estate-agents'. In any case, you know what I mean – and I want some idea of who are good and who are not good…

All of my research posters are done in powerpoint. I used to do them in Illustrator, but powerpoint is actually easier for this unless you are trying to do anything super fancy…

And I am saying this from the point of view of a numerical modeller in earth science – even though I have lots of sophisticated programs and technical know-how available, powerpoint is still the easiest way to do a poster…

Paul Gilbert (Mr Big and RacerX). Used to play solos with cordless drill etc. But for ridiculous guitar solo, try:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2Xi8BHwGpg&feature=related
from about 3:20 in – excellent despite crap sound quality – includes playing using his teeth…

Hmmm – I dont know any other way of doing this – but I dont actually have Illustrator any more (I learnt this stuff years ago). You probably can make a brush or pen stroke but I have no idea how.

As for getting a triangle, try selecting the Wingdings3 font and typing either p or q (lowercase). At least, p and q give me triangles (q is rotated 180 degrees compared to p) using wingdings3. If wingdings3 doesnt work, try a different font that might have symbols…

Hope that works…
STS.

You dont need a brush to do this. Draw the curved line first – make it black. Then copy the line and paste it in front of the other line. Then get the text tool and click at one end of the line – that will make the topmost line into a textline. Then type capital I's using however many spaces in between each I.

You may need to play around to get the I's to appear on the correct side (i.e. on the inside of the curve) – its just a matter of clicking the text tool onto the correct place on the line – just trial and error…

Thats what I did when I needed to make a geomorphological map and it works perfectly.

Good luck!

Hi – I have a 2007 orange clockwork. At present I have an old 2006 set of fox talas forks (90-125 mm of travel) on it. I would say that having the forks at full travel is not great (I normally dial down to 90 mm for long hills, but I usually run around 110 mm of travel for normal rides. I dont really use the full travel option as I find it puts the geometry out a bit too much for me – but you might prefer to ride differently. The clockwork frame is designed around a 100 mm fork so putting an extra 30mm on there is a fair old chunk of extra height…

STS.

Erm – is he actually wearing a waistcoat to go riding in?

Rick – OK will do. Had been planning to just pootle around by myself while Mrs STS went off with the other ladies. I dont know any of the riding in the lakes really so will see what you're thinking of doing when I get there on Saturday morning.

STS

Dont need a lift, but I am taking Mrs STS over to that. Not sure what I will do for the day – taking bike obviously. If you're looking for someone else to go riding for the day while the ladies do their thing, then find me at the place (or mail me: ScotlandTheScared at gmail dot com) – I will be on an orange clockwork. Will you be sticking around Whinlatter for the Saturday or heading off elsewhere?

pjt201 – that film is from 1 or 2 years ago – filmed for ski sunday/high altitude.

Looks awsome – but maybe I would have tried something where someone else was steering first! Mad.

Ummm – how are you burning it to DVD? itunes has DRM (Digital Rights Management) which means that you can only watch it in itunes itself – you cant take video and put it on a DVD because everyone would simply start giving copies to their mates etc. You can download various other software to allow you to remove DRM – but its a faff I suspect.

So – it wont work if you simply went into windows explorer and copied the file to DVD.

The only way I can think of to cheat at this is by linking your video out cable on your computer to a DVD recorder (i.e. the DVD player/recorder you have sitting under your TV) and then press record while you watch the video on full screen mode. Not 100% sure how well that'd work though – might be a bit pants quality.

jpeg is a lossy format – i.e. it discards lots of information before being saved. RAW gives you much better flexibility with processing, and you can always go back later and adjust things like colour balance without making a pigs ear of the image. Editing a jpeg may compound its shortcomings. I always use RAW now – there is no contest in terms of the flexibility it provides, and the quality of image you can produce.

You probably have a setting which saves a jpeg + RAW (i.e. takes up lots of space!) in your camera – then you have a quick jpeg, and a RAW for doing editing on. So if you cant choose which format, then use both!

You can download newer versions of Adobe Camera RAW to work with older versions of photoshop, so no problems using a new camera with older photoshop.

gusamc – we had the start of the problem last year, but I suspect it has been exacerbated by the snow. I still think the problem is that the DPC has failed as apposed to ingress through another route.

Funky – I had heard about the dryzone stuff – that was what we would go for if we end up doing it ourselves. At least it doesnt need much expertise to do…

jonb – good idea – I'll ask jeff. I wont be out tonight though – not feeling well at the moment. But might post on the other forum.

The slates that were the DPC for the joists were kept, but we also put dpc membrane under the joists as a double check. We put new joists in where the old ones were knackered (due to damp at ends where slate DPC failed). So the woodwork will now be fine.

The level of the old injected DPC outside is high enough to avoid any wash up. It was done some time ago, but the company who did it has gone bust, and therefore any guarantee is gone too (solicitor tried to trace that for us).

So in summary, we DEFINITELY need to inject a DPC, its just back to the original question – should I do it, or should I get someone in? The idea of getting someone in and therefore having a guarantee is perhaps good.

We have vents on one wall at front (lounge), and one wall at back (dining room). Air can circulate between the two rooms underneath the floor.

Not recently paved anywhere (been here 4 years). There is concrete up to both walls though, but when it rains the drainage works to take surface water away from house.

No internal water leaks. Not sure of wall construction, but have ventilated what I can. Neighbour did have the problem a number of years ago, but got it sorted – I think by injecting a new DPC.

On two exterior walls there are plugged injection holes from an old DPC, but I think it has failed (and that company no longer in business). The shared wall has never been DPCd as far as I can tell.

Drains, such as I can see, are OK, but I might have a look under the drain cover in the yard to have a check next time it is raining – just to see that what is coming down the downpipes is actually flowing away, and not into the floor.

In the street the gutter at the edge of the pavement is blocked and frequently ponds (asked for it to be cleared about 2 years ago to no avail). I wondered if that would cause a problem – its about 4 meters away from the lounge wall. However, this problem exists at the dining room, which is at the back of the house and nowhere near the street.

We noticed some damp smells last year, so we lifted floor in lounge and removed loads of loose dirt and crap, unblocking the air bricks at the front of the house. We also put DPC underneath the joists where they meet the wall, as there was no membrane, just slate. We swapped out a few joists that had rotten, and one that had snapped. We've done nothing to the actual walls apart from clear loose debris from their base. Now, damp is rising and discolouring the walls above the skirting, and is making the paint bubble off in a few small places.

Also, this is happening on the tw exterior walls, and in an interior partition wall (supporting wall) and the party wall between us and the neighbours (who haven't got any signs of damp on their side).

Make sure you get the bead of the tyre sitting in the CENTER CHANNEL of the rim while you are putting the tyre on. This will give you enough extra to get the tyre bead over the rim. They are supposed to be quite tight. And use some tyre levers – I am pretty sure I used some to get the tyres on my 355s.

Like midlifecrashes says – I got one from Tescos in an emergency – was only 6 quid, and I'm still using it – no probs. I just transferred the bite valve from my knackered camelback bladder and its been great – just use it as a cheap stop gap until you can get a new dakine one.

I couldnt afford a proper macro lens, so at present I just use some coupling rings to attach an old olympus lens to the front of one of my canon lenses. You end up with a circular image surrounded by black border, but you just crop that. Seems to work well – and is a cheap way of trying macro photography out.