Is it an urban myth or did wasps teach us a thing or two about making paper from wood?

No you're thinking about bees and french polish.

I can see why the wasps are so narked this year, they are victims of the recession. Last year driving around Glasgow you would see signs on lamp posts saying "Wasps Destroyed – £20". The suddenly this year "Wasps Destroyed – £25", a 25% increase in the bounty on their heads! Then this week in Rutherglen "Wasps Destroyed – £35". I mean theres no more graphic illustration of the climate of financial chaos the world has found itself in!

£35! Each!

I'm in the wrong business.

As a child I would only eat:

Spam
Mashed Potato

My folks used to crush up vitamin tablets and put them in the mash to try and keep the scurvy and rickets at bay with the result that I would subsequently only eat

Spam
Only Mums Mashed Potato

Because, by comparison, other people's mash tasted funny.

I've always thought theres a punchline that could have been approved upon…

When Winston Churchill did his "…..and you madam are ugly, but in the morning I'll be sober." he should have added "so, get your coat luv, you've pulled"

Is some megalomaniac somewhere stockpiling all the gold for a giant golden space rocket?

Yes. Its Simon Ralli

Or Mr T

I find the idea of posting stuff off a bit alarming – if you've got a bit of old ratner you want to cash in and take it to a shop, they can make you and offer for it and you can decide on spot whether the offer is good enough or not, if its not a good enough offer – walk away. With these Ann Diamond endorsed adverts you post of your stuff and they send you a cheque – but for how much? £1000? 30p? Doesn't matter seemingly, you'll just get what you're given and the deal is done.

Compared to pawnbrokers/cash converters who do at least make a fairly concerted effort to ensure that the goods they are offered are legit, its a pretty flimsy transaction, they've obviously got no qualms about how hot the stuff they are sent might be.

Anyway, I've got a new business idea. Post me you bike and by return of post I'll send you a cheque for any amount that I see fit

different side though (and he didn't do it).

You've spoilt the ending now!

Are we there yet?

but both are supposed to improve the sound significantly

only if you have the necessary credulity

How much is this credulity and what does it cost? Can I get it on eBay?

I have to say its been a very short, dull series this one. I though the formula was getting tired a while ago, but this series was utterly forgetable. Its been getting less chatter on here that Big Brother (less than none?).

Break into a rendition of "Weak in the presence of beauty", sat on the lap of the interviewer like a cabaret singer.

Does anyone actually know anyone who has won big?

My uncle won £4m about 10 years ago.

My local shop sells 'Unlucky Dips'. Like a normal Lucky Dip, but with his personal guarantee that you won't win. If one proves to be defective and you win the jackpot he'll give you your quid back.

Photograph the bikes and try to get valuations for them and you should be fine*. Unlike bike insurance co.s, who will give exhaustive list of approved locks and exclusions, M&S don't specify how you should secure or use your bike(s) its just counted as another of your possesions. The £4000 limit is for single items, so it doesn't matter how many bikes you have, or how many might get stolen, so long as non of them individually cost more than £4000 to replace.

I've found the easiest way to sort out valuations is to do the work/research yourself (especially custom build or much tinkered with bike, rather than something off the shelf) email it to an agreeable bike shop and get them to print it out on their headed paper. In the context of actually doing some business with them of course. Valuing six bikes would be a ball ache for them, but if you do the valuation and they just have to agree with it, thats a lot easier for them.

I've made a claim with M&S once, not for bikes though. Excellent service, they record the call and that call counts as 'the paper work' so at the end of the first call to them everything is underway, you also get dealt with by the first person that answers the phone, no being passed around. They did the direct replacement thing (it was a phone and ipod) and the company that took care of that were excellent too.

Check through their exclusions (there aren't many) but you should find that they suit the way you use your bikes and where you store them.

Ton. You should play 'Suicide Lottery'. A group of you dont buy tickets, but do write down the number you would have bought. Then you all watch the live draw together hoping non of your numbers come up. If someone gets the first three numbers drawn it starts to get exciting.

Oh, and how do yer stop her trying to eat her own sh1t???

Can't comment on your wife's toilet habits.

But when there are new dogs in the household you do get a lot of growly, snappy action. Its part of the pecking order establishment I guess, but its probably also just play, even if it sounds aggressive, and can sometime look pretty violent but no actual harm is being done. My folks have a young and an old springer, they will occationally seem to knock seven bells out of each other and seconds later will be curled up together asleep. Keep a close eye but it should all be noise and no action.

I saw a wildlife programme about swimming with sharks and this guy developing a diving suit that was shark-bite proof. He'd test that on his wife – chuck her in the sea and encourage sharks to have a good old chomp.

If you are tall then once you've narrowed it down your choices try and find somewhere that has the tents set up and 'try them on'. I found it difficult to find meaningful measurements and its difficult to compare between different brands on a like for like basis too. Looking closely some of them are pretty crazy. When I was looking I found one model that comes in a 2 man and a 3 man version, the 3 man version had a whole 10cm of extra width.

I've happily binned a tent rather than carry it home before now (and not because it was heavy), so a bit of travel and research finding the right one is worthwhile.

I like my North Face Roadrunner 22. Good access with porches on both sides and decent length for me (6'6")

Have a full and frank discussion about it, a debate, if you like. En masse

An interesting sequence of events:

Shave and drink beer, because you're already brilliant!

If you're going to pee in the shower at least give me time to get out first!

I'm reminded of that clip Dennis Norden used to show of a bare knuckle boxer who had just won an all day elimination tournament.

Interviewer "What kind of state are you in after twelve consecutive knockout bouts?"
Boxer "What state? erm, Idaho."

I'm happy, I'm happy….

If you are looking for a book to read try

The Tiger that Isn't

If you are believing all these teenage pregnancy, drinking, crime stats then find out where they came from and what they mean. The media thrives on a "Perception Gap", it uses statistics in a very divisive way to create news where non really exists. There are some superb illustrations of this, and Teenage Pregnancy is one of them. Bad information is so prevalent and saturates so deeply that even people with expertise in a field believe the guff over what they see with their own eyes.

As an amusing aside my dad got a job with an education authority once, and between getting the job and starting on his first day new areas of responsibility kept being added to his role. He started out in charge of Art and design, then art and design and technology, then domestic science was added, then special education was added, and education for teenagers is detention and the list kept growing.

On his first day there was a big conference where he was introduced and the long list of his responsibilities was read out, with a new one. The guy introducing him added "…… and he's also responsible for all the pregnant teenagers in Greater Manchester"

That story begins with the word "Journalist…….." so you can disregard anything that follows

Theres nothing wrong with the country, theres just something wrong with your TV, it seems to be full of crap

It wouldn't do any harm to google for a few B&B numbers for the areas you'll pass through, just to have to hand, then you can at least call ahead sometimes, rather than arrive and start knocking on doors. Anyone thats booked up will usually have an idea where the available rooms will be and will give you some (usually 3 digit) phone numbers.

Even if they're not booked up people will still be selflessly helpful. I called a place in Plockton to see if they had any rooms, they said that the had, but their rooms we're "probably a bit too expensive, so why not call these numbers incase they have something cheaper, call us back if they're booked up"

Try desperately to cough over the noises being made by the poltergeist. Or try and draw a veil over the the repeated incidents where mobs of vigilantes mistakenly surround the house thinking its the lair of some awful pedophile, due to a similarity between your address and the address of a real, dreadful pedophile.

There have been studies comparing weight carried on the bike verses weight towed, using heart rate as a comparison. Roughly speaking you can tow twice the weight for the same effort as carrying it on the bike (or more importantly take the same weight further). BUT, thats for a two wheel trailer (and one that joins the bike in the right place). The effort expended is as much about balancing the load as moving it forwards. With a two wheel trailer you put no effort into stabling the load, but with a one wheel trailer you do, so there is less and possibly no effort saved.

Towing two wheel trailers (on the road) is a hoot. Compared to panniers your bike handles exactly as it does unladed, just a bit more effort to get moving and quite a bit more up hills.

Off road though, two wheel trailers aren't much fun.

If you only use the one one air tool and only use it intermitently then don't go crazy. If its a tool that runs continously (sanding, spraying, grinding) then if you are close to the free air margin you might find you have to keep stopping to let the compressor get its breath back, but if you are using the tool in short bursts (nailing, screw driving etc) then thats less of an issue. The benefits of a large tank are that the compressor is running less of the time, again if you are using a lot of air the compressor will be buzzing away all the time, driving you bloody nuts (and wearing out) bigger tanks give a more continuous air flow and moments of blessed silence.

If you are wanting to use the compressor for just the one tool, then I'd shop around for an air free alternative. Compressors are pain in the bloody arse, cheap compressors more so.

Lets do the show right HERE in the barn!

I forgot about the screwfix forums, I'll give them a go. I've found the pegs for sale seperately on line, but dimensions never seem to be stated for them.

I know someone who did stop, found one dead and one dying, had to hold the dying one's guts in while the ambulance came. Another car came by – looked, and drove on.

That second car was traced and the driver wound up in jail.

They do make an audible squeak. I used know a guy who's duties included opening up a 16th century castle each morning. It still had the enormous 16th century lock on the door and he had to carry the huge key around with him. One morning he puts the key in the door and theres a squeak. He thinks – I'd better oil that – pulls out the key and theirs a little bat squashed on the end of the key.

I also got home from a long drive back through the highlands once, with the bike on the roof of the car, to find I'd collected a little bat head tube badge en route. Poor wee mite.

*Hands Up*

Towed a trailer up it in the Mistral

The studio building was still half occupied by the council's addiction services at the time, so we had real zombies all around us. Thats the best thing about Govan, you can have a bunch of extras dressed as nazi zombies outside on a fag break and nobody even blinks.

Just finished shooting a budget thriller with Idris Elba called Legacy. Amusingly also filmed in Govan and Dalbeatie but seemingly set in Brooklyn and Russia, its to have the look and feel of a US independent flick. We'll have to see if it can gather enough momentum for a decent release though, might be more of a festival film.

In chats with bigger production called Eagle of the Ninth – a roman legion lost north of Hadrians wall (we'll gloss over that, as a roman legion would have been perfectly at home north of the wall) Pictish villages to be built up near Ullapool, and an underwater build on Loch Lomond. So if that gets a green light it should be fun

Set was built inside govan town hall in glasgow, the war torn street in the opening scenes was near Dalbeatie, the exterior bunker was built near castle douglas. I'm credited as one of the designers, there we're two of us, which is unusual, as the other guy had done alot of the concept work but wasn't able to work the whole shoot, so we worked together then I took over as head of the art dept when he left. But I was also the construction manager for the duration. And the standby joiner for the shoot as well.

The great thing for me is about 80-90% of the screen time is in environments I designed and built, so its a great wee showreel.

By the end I could have been any of them! I was only getting home for 2 -3 hours a night during the the last 3-4 weeks of filming.

Now a I tell you what would have been a good movie – one sunday on a break in shooting I had to go in do some work on the set and arrived at the studio to find it surrounded by police – some guys had broken in and we're in the act, so a good collar for the fuzz. The building is an absolute warren, a run down town hall with corridors reminiscent of the shining, so finding the guys was a real task – all the lights out, miles of corridors that all look the same. So they took in dogs. Eventually they we're happy that they had found everyone and I could get in and check on everything. Our set was doubly more of a maze than the rest of the building – totally enclosed, lots of false panels and false doors. I went in and right slap bang in the middle of the ceiling of the central corridor was this big hole. One of the guys must have tried to run across the roof of the set, which was only 6mm thick and fallen through to find himself in a dripping, dank, gore-stained nazi bunker in the absolute pitch dark. Every apparent exist to the 'outside world' was a complete dead end. He must have been shtting himself, and all around him in the darkness the barking dogs.

I used to work in a prison a long time back, and the inmates best stories were always their 'getting caught' stories, his would have been a corker.