b). Whether the shaft is long enough to engage with the brake bolt (compare with the length of the shaft of the existing bolt nut).

FTFM

but on a carbon road fork it’s going to sit deep inside the fork. I see no problem mounting the guard that way, just can’t figure out if the bolt would actually fit inside the recess.

Does the existing brake nut sit deep inside the fork?

If it does I suggest you measure the depth/extent to which the existing bolt is recessed in the fork. According to the Q&A on SJS Cycle’s website, the shaft length is 32mm and the head is an additional 10.5mm, so you should able to determine

a). Whether the head of the bolt will protrude to allow the mudguard bracket to be bolted to it, and

b). Whether the shaft is long enough to engage with the brake bolt (compare with the length of the shaft of the existing bolt).

There’s a long thread about the newer Mavic Open Pro rim on the CTC/Cycling UK forum. On this page of the thread, it is suggested that the braking surface of the rim is relatively thin, which might be a concern.

Just wondering what I should have along side the baocn and leek pasta rather than just a whole plate of pasta. Is the bacon in the recipe enough protein in take, maybe I should do something to go along with it. Is there a pretty good home made garlic bread maybe…

100g is a standard largeish serving of pasta. If you didn’t feel very hungry you could reduce it to 75g or even 50g. If you were having a traditional italian meal with several courses then you would only have 50g-75g. Bear in mind that the cheese is also a protein. If you want more protein, then have some nuts as a starter/nibble beforehand.

If you really like and want garlic bread, then fair enough, but for me garlic bread on top of a heavy pasta dish like that would be too much. I prefer to think of what ingredients and foods go together or complement one another in terms of taste, texture and flavours, rather than in terms of scientific food groups, but pasta and bread are both flour (‘double carbing’) and the butter in the garlic bread is more dairy fat on top of the cheese and the fat from the bacon. I like bread with my meal, but I would tend to eat somthing like part of a (homemade) foccacia roll before the pasta, and then use the remainder to mop up the remains of the sauce after eating the pasta.

Rather than thinking about protein or food groups or thinking about food simply as fuel/nutrition, think instead about what to your taste buds would go well with that sort of dish. To my mind, you are having a fairly rich/heavy pasta dish, so I would want things with it or after it that would cut through or counter balance that fat and richness, for example a glass of white wine with it, and/or a winter leaves salad with an olive oil and vinegar dressing, and/or a piece of fruit (e.g. an orange or an apple), i.e. things which are all somewhat acidic.

Part of my proble, with recipes is that I stick to it for fear of having to bin the whole lot.

It’s just cooking. No one is going to die if you make a mistake*. If you never make a mistake because you always stick rigidly to the recipe, then you will also never learn or develop that feel for cooking that comes from trial and error and experimenting/playing around a bit, whether it be with ingredients, or the process (increasing or lowering the temperature a bit, varying the cooking time etc.).

* There are a few exceptions, but you will get plenty of warning about those, e.g. picking wild mushrooms, soaking kidney beans etc.

When you have a complete disaster, just laugh about it and stick a frozen pizza in the oven.

GolfChick, that’s not a small kitchen. From your description I was expecting to see a galley kitchen of the size in many boats. Your kitchen looks ideally sized in many respects: everything is conveniently within reach. If you read articles on designing kitchen layouts, they always emphasise the importance of the work triangle, which should be kept small. Your kitchen is much more efficiently and better laid out than mine (and cleaner and tidier).

The pan lid storage on the cupboard door is a good idea, but I would be worried that the lids could too easily come off the screws from which they are hanging, and break the glass lids. In fact those screws on the door were probably used to fit a door pan lid holder like these which would be much more secure. If you have room for a ceiling or wall mounted pan rack, you can often store the lids of the pans by sliding the handle of the lid over the handle of the pan (providing the lid has a handle, not a knob, and subject to the shape/width/depth of the two handles), like this:

In my kitchen I have installed this pan rack immediately in front of the window: the window reveal makes it possible to hang large frying pans which would touch the wall if the rack were mounted on a blank wall, and the pans are low enough for 5’10” me to reach (I don’t use the shelf above) and don’t significantly obscure the window.

Good luck with your leek and bacon pasta. I would cook the bacon first in a little oil, remove the bacon when crisp and set aside, and then soften and cook the leeks in the oil and bacon fat (for more flavour), i.e. in the same way that another BBC Goodfood recipe says to do for leek and bacon risotto. If there were any brown or burnt bits stuck to the bottom of the pan, I would remove the leeks when cooked and ‘deglaze’ the pan with a splash of white wine and knock off the burnt bits (a.k.a. fond) with a wooden spoon (don’t remove them: they’re the most flavoursome bits). This also makes cleaning the pan afterwards much easier. Once the alcohol has boiled off, add back in your leeks and bacon, and then add the cheese.

If you are storing pans in cupboards, I would suggest you consider whether you could install a wall or ceiling mounted rack made by the likes of Hahn or Masterclass. Being able to reach up and grab the pan you need is much better than having to rummage around in a cupboard, and with extra hooks you can hang other things from the rack like utensils, colander, grater etc., all of which will free up valuable space in your cupboards.

As for juggling, the more you do it, the more efficient and quicker you will find yourself becoming, including how you organise things in your kitchen. It will also include making your own choices about short cuts, e.g. the recipe says finely chop half an onion – you decide you are going to use frozen chopped onions instead.

A few thoughts:

– For me it’s not about healthy food, but rather good food which tastes great. Knowing that what I am going to eat will taste really nice (to me), is what motivates me to put even the most basic effort in when required to make something (as opposed to always using something pre-prepared in a packet or a jar).

– Many pasta sauce recipes can be cooked in little more – or even less – time than it takes to cook the pasta. This is an advantage of not batch cooking something like a tomato sauce, since the quantity of tomatoes in a serving for one or two will cook much more quickly than a large batch which may require half an hour or more to reduce. This means if you have a reasonable repertoire of pasta dishes and store cupboard ingredients, that you can be very spontaneous and decide at the last minute what to have that evening (including deciding some evenings that you can’t be bothered and getting out a frozen pizza).

– I recommended the Diana Henry books ‘Cook Simple’ and ‘Simple’ above. She wrote these because when she had a baby and then young children, she found that she just did not have much time to spend preparing and cooking. I’ve only tried a few of the recipes, but I think she strikes a good balance between quick/easy to make and very nice. Lunch today for me will be huevos rotos, which is basically just potatoes and an egg or two. If you google you should be able to find other of her recipes from those books, e.g. linguine all’amalfitana[/url].

May help if the boyfriend was inclined at all to help with this but nope that is asking a bit too much. So last night I had the side salad etc and he just had a bowl of pasta. I asked if he was sitting at the tablet and nope he sat on the sofa while I sat at the table.

You’ve just decided to take up a new hobby and you are a bit obsessed with it (like many of us are when we get into anything new, whether it be a sport, a hobby or anything else). Although eating more healthily will benefit him as well, you cannot expect him to be as interested in the subject and as enthusiastic as you. Sometimes people who talk about healthy eating can be very tedious, and some of the food writers can be the worst. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s ‘Veg Every Day!’ for example has a marked evangelical, proselytising ‘worthy’ tone, and it’s counter-productive. If someone were to try to make me eat healthily, I would not simply fall in line, and eventually would react against it and instead have a ready meal, chips or a take-away just to be contrary.

You catch more flies with honey than vinegar, so think – and especially talk – less about eating healthily, and more about eating really nice food. Food and drink are something to be enjoyed, not agonised over or the source of domestic friction, and eating together and at the table should be a relaxed, leisurely and pleasurable ritual. Have a glass of wine with the meal, and a starter (it doesn’t need to be anything fancy – some nuts [salted even!] or some olives etc. One of Diana Henry’s suggested starters is simply some fresh french radishes: eat spread with a bit of unsalted butter, a pinch of sea salt and a piece of baguette), and have a dessert or something to finish like a piece of fruit or some cheese and biscuits. All this will help to make eating good food at the table a pleasurable ritual.

And to state the obvious: no TV, tablets or phones at the table.

Kebab with rarified elephant leg

Indian or African elephant?

I sometimes like to make pasta with fresh tomatoes. No idea if this is authentic or not but I once had it in a restaurant and it was nice, and I recreated it. Tastes fresh and tomatoey which of course you can’t get from a jar.

Totally authentic. I’ve lost count of the times when I’ve read a recipe by the ‘big hitters’ of italian cookery books where they suggest using fresh tomatoes instead for some pasta recipes or pizza, rather than tinned, but it’s always subject to the proviso that they are very, very good fresh tomatoes, which sadly I’m not sure it’s possible to buy easily in the UK from any of the supermarkets even in the height of summer – maybe the answer is growing your own. I did read that Giorgio Locatelli flies in the pachino tomatoes[/url] for his restaurant from Sciliy.

GolfChick, the only person who gets to decide for you which is better – a jar of sauce or a home made sauce – is you, and the answer will depend on your taste preferences and on what is most practical for you, and the same is true for the rest of us: everbody’s taste and personal circumstances are particular to them.

I agree with molgrips that the good quality jarred sauces are likely to be comparable to the home made sauces many of us will make, and the main advantage of home made is likely to be cost and/or the ability to tweak the recipe to personal preference.

The trick with all processed foodstuffs is to identify the good stuff. Industrial cooking technology and economies/efficiencies of scale will enable commercial food manufacturers to make some things as well or better than at home. What I want to avoid are those products where the ‘food scientists’ have cut corners and costs in the process and/or quality of ingredients, so like welshfarmer I will look for an ingredients list that is the same or very similar to what would be used at home.

I’ve not tried the LLoyd Grossman sauces, but I found the M&S version of puttanesca[/url] to be absolutely vile. I suspect the reason might be that the olives need to be added at the end of the cooking, and M&S (or rather its supplier) is putting the olives in with all the other ingredients in the cooking vessel. In contrast I found the cheaper M&S Red Pesto[/url] to be quite OK (I guess it might be even be possible to turn that or a similar plainer jarred tomato sauce into something like puttanesca by adding anchovies or anchovy paste, capers and olives). There’s no harm in trying different products and experimenting.

GolfChick, I note what you say about limited freezer space. A standard 400g tin of plum tomatoes will typically produce 4 servings of most pasta sauces, so if there are two of you, there would be two servings left over. FYI sauces like puttanesca can be stored in the fridge for 3 days. Another option would be to use Lakeland soup and sauce freezer bags to minimise the space they would take in the freezer.

I really want some sort of seafood pasta and mushroom pasta as I love both but it’s finding one that’s not too super complicated.

If you mean pasta dishes containing both seafood and mushrooms, I doubt you will find (m)any. The Italians are often very dogmatic about not combining certain ingredients, e.g. cheese with fish, and I cannot recall ever seeing a seafood and mushroom pasta recipe.

Hoewever, if you are looking for seafood pasta recipes, presumably ideally with vegetables, then there are loads of recipes. One of my favourites is garlic prawn linguine with cherry tomatoes. I’ve posted the recipe below previously:

Heat a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in a saute pan (or frying pan if large enough to contain the pasta at the end) at a medium heat.
Add a pinch of dried chilli flakes and a finely chopped garlic clove and cook till the garlic is ‘pale gold’ (beige).
Add around half a dozen prawns and cook for half a minute to a minute, then turn them over and cook another half a minute to a minute.
Add between 6-8 cherry tomatoes, sliced in half, and cook for a few minutes, adding salt and pepper to season.

In the meantime cook 75g-100g of linguine or spaghetti in approximately a litre of boiling water with half a teaspoon of salt added to it. Cook it till it’s ‘al dente’ (so 10 minutes if the De Cecco brand), then quickly drain and add the pasta to the saute/frying pan, together with a good handful of fresh or frozen finely chopped flat leaf parsley.

Allow half a minute to a minute for the pasta to cook a bit more in the juices and then serve with some bread (focaccia is good) to mop up the spicy garlicky tomatoey juices at the end.

NB When I last cooked this I did it slightly differently, cooking the pasta in boiling water for 7 minutes, then adding it to the saute pan for 3 minutes with 25ml-50ml of the pasta water, and only adding the prawns at the last minute (cooking them just long enough to turn them pink all over, and cutting them in two or three to speed up their cooking, i.e. as is suggested in this recipe which I linked to above for a similar dish without tomatoes).

You should be able to find plenty of other seafood/pasta/vegetable recipes by googling, e.g. tuna and tomato. Another of my favourites is pasta puttanesca – albeit the only seafood ingredient is the anchovies – which there are various ways to cook, see here and here and watch this. I batch cook puttanesca sauce and freeze it in portions. Have a glass of red wine with it (or possibly a Peroni).

An advantage of the last two recipes is that they used tinned tomatoes. I don’t buy fresh tomatoes in winter, since I figure they will not be at their best (although maybe the cherry tomatoes in the shops now, especially on the vine, might still deliver good results when cooked in the first recipe above).

Another easy cherry tomato pasta recipe:

Halve 150g-250g of cherry tomatoes per person. Place cut side up in an oven proof tray large enough to contain them all snuggly together with 4 garlic cloves per person. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with a pinch of chilli flakes, a good grind or pepper and a pinch of salt. Roast in pre-heated oven at 200°C for 25 minutes (until garlic is soft and golden). Cook the pasta, drain it and return to the pot and add the cooked tomatoes and garlic and toss. In an ideal world you would also have some torn fresh basil leaves to scatter over the pasta just before serving.

I don’t use 3 teaspoons of sugar per 300gms of soup when I make it at home.

And neither does New Covent Garden: although sugar is indeed an added ingredient, most of the sugar that makes up the 12.6g per 300g serving is the natural sugar present in the tomatoes. By way of comparison their vegetable soup and carrot and corriander soup both contain 9g of sugar, even though sugar is not an added ingredient. In their recipe for making the slow roasted tomato soup for four people at home, they list 1 teaspoon of caster sugar in the ingredients, which is sprinkled over the tomatoes before roasting them in the oven, presumably to increase the caramelisation/Maillard reaction (or ‘burning it a bit’, which is my definition of most cooking).

I think the addition of sugar specifically to some tomato sauce and soup recipes is not uncommon, e.g. napolitana sauce for pasta, although my own personal preference is for those tomato sauces which contain garlic and chilli instead.

I don’t need to mention the salt either. In half a carton.

I’m not sure what you mean. The salt content is 1g per 300g serving. Food manufacturers are obliged to list the salt content, whereas any recipe for cooking at home would leave the amount of any seasoning to the taste of the cook, and that might not be enough for some at the table who would add more: it’s personal preference/choice. I imagine that New Covent Garden add the minimum amount of salt that they consider necessary for the flavour of their product, leaving it to consumers to add more if they wish.

when is prawn linguine night?

I’ve just taken the prawns out to defrost.

howsyourdad1 – Member

More importantly for Golfchick, New Covent Garden soups are currently half price at Tesco (and some other supermarkets), so that’s one or more to add to the online order.

processed crap, sorry. probably better than a Chicago town pizza however granted! [/quote]

Like welshfarmer, I often check the ingredients of any processed food, and the presence of palm oil and long chemical names usually kills whatever appetite I might initially have had when looking at the enticing image on the packet. In the case of New Covent Garden, they have a reputation of making good quality soups with basic ingredients (and they have published a number of their own recipe books). The ingredients of their tomato soup are:

Water, Tomatoes (26%), Onions, Tomato Paste (3%), Slow Roasted Tomatoes (1.8%), Basil (1%), Sugar, Sundried Tomato Paste (0.5%), Cornflour, Balsamic Vinegar, Salt, Garlic, Coarse Ground Black Pepper

Slow Roasted Tomatoes contains: Slow Roasted Tomatoes, Rapeseed Oil, Garlic, Oregano

Sundried Tomato Paste contains: Sundried Tomatoes (53.5%), Rapeseed Oil, Wine Vinegar, Sugar, Salt

Processed? Of course, but it is fundamentally no different from the cooking and blending processes to make soup at home. Crap? I don’t think so, and it passes welshfarmer’s test.

Are you sure we should hang out? 😉

Some suggestions are tricky because I just plain don’t like them! I love sweet potato, mushrooms, salad, tomatoes, cucumber, don’t mind potatoes, some things I could prob put up with like carrots but I don’t like cauliflower, broccoli, peppers, green beans

As molgrips implies, how you cook and serve vegetables can make a huge difference. Too many domestic and commercial ‘cooks’ in the UK think that cooking vegetables simply means cutting them up and boiling them in water. GolfChick, if you can afford it I would suggest that you try eating out at least occasionally at good restaurants offering differing types of cuisine (italian, spanish, turkish, medditerranean, far eastern, indian etc.) and see if you particularly like how they cook vegetables and what they serve them with.

For example, the typical italian dish of broccoli and pasta would involve boiling pieces of broccoli but what makes all the difference is that they are then sautéd in olive oil flavoured with garlic, chilli and possibly anchovies. Similarly as howsyourdad1 notes above, it is the olive oil and lemon dressing for boiled green beans that make them work so well with a rich cream laden dish like potato dauphinoise. And yet a completely different result can be had by cooking green beans in a curry like this one which also contains tomatoes, mange tout and peas.

The groan comes from the fact that I’ll be removing what appears to be the most resistant oat based adhesive know to man* from the inside of the pan afterwards

I use jumbo rolled oats with half milk and water and I don’t have this problem, unless I leave the pan unattended too long on the hob and the oats start to catch and brown on the bottom of the pan.

I would suggest you experiment with lower temperature and regular or even continual stirring once the the porridge starts to thicken.

Poor signal to noise ratio, I think, means filtering the real info from the ‘jambafacts’ is very difficult to do.

I think it’s like child behaviour: respond positively to and encourage good behaviour, and ignore/don’t react to a lot of the rest. I’m just not so sure any more who on that thread are the children.

Except it’s a pithy soundbite which adds to the discussion the information that it’s hard to believe anything written by somebody who makes stuff up most of the time.

All the more reason, that when he does do as others have repeatedly requested and challenged him to do, and posts a link to a very insightful article on the subject, that people make the effort to read the article and consider its content, and take the opportunity to discuss the insight it provides.

a fair bit more balanced than my outburst this morning

On the contrary somafunk, I thought your post was very informative, and I had in fact hesitated to suggest fruit juice in my original post, because I was vaguely aware of the concerns about the sugar hit (and missing the fibre benefit of eating the actual fruit). You were quite right to point this issue out, and I am grateful to you because it’s made me realise that the raw fruit is not that much more expensive. I’ve even got some of those fancy grapefruit spoons with serrated edges, and I’m now quite looking forward to getting some use out of them.

I agree with you about the sugar industry and heavily processed foods. That doesn’t stop me from having sugar on my pancakes, I just don’t have pancakes very often.

I am sorry to hear about your friend and his family. Life can be absolutely awful at times, and sometimes I think all we can do is hang onto and enjoy the good moments, whether it’s the company of a friend, a nice bike ride, a good view from the top of a hill, or a good meal/drink.

howsyourdad1, I prefer a grinding of pepper to your suggestion of Maldon sea salt, but I agree with you about the lemon. However, I have only one lemon left at the moment and I am not cutting that up until I’ve first used the zest in garlic, chilli, lemon and prawn linguine.

A stopped clock is right twice a day.

A pithy soundbite which adds nothing to the discussion. Rather like what I was describing above.

Jambalaya is often accused on that thread (rightly as far as I can see) of making sweeping assertions which are unsubstantiated and without any proof or evidence to back them up.

However, the one time that I noticed he did provide a link to an article to back up some of his statements, it was completely ignored by all other posters. The article he linked to was long and technical, but it was from the man had been at the very heart of UK/EU relations and probably understood the issues better than anyone else.

As I say, that evidence was completely ignored by all other posters. So when Jambalaya is blamed for spoiling the thread by posting untruths, I think those posters also have themselves to blame for failing to engage when presented with the opportunity to discuss substantive issues. All of which makes me think those posters are not interested in such discussion, only shouting out their own pithy soundbites into the vacuum of that thread, so their contribution is not actually any better than Jambalaya’s. In fact, in asking that he be stopped from posting untruths, they are seeking impose censorship on the thread, which is worse.

Somafunk, thank you for the informative post. I was vaguely aware of the issue with fruit juice vs. the whole fruit, and ordinary pasta being a refined white flour product with, I believe, a high GI.

However, I think we need to be very careful about seeing diet and any particular food as either wholly good or wholly bad (despite the media deliberately mis-representing new food science in just that misleading way, sometimes even facilitated by some scientists themselves given the pressure they are under to be published and obtain funding).

I drink a small glass of grapefruit juice with my breakfast because I like it, even though I know it’s not a great way to consume fruit. I would prefer to have half a grapefruit, but that would be somewhere between 50% to 100% more expensive (although having just calculated the monetary price difference prompted by your post, it’s not as great as I had thought, and I will switch to buying the whole fruit in future, so thank you for that).

Similarly pasta might not be ideal, but I like it a lot, and it’s much easier to eat vegetables with pasta (in very enjoyable recipes) than with chips – chips with broccoli anyone?

Obviously people’s personal circumstances will vary, not only preferences (which can change for better or worse) but also health and the ability to afford and access to good food and the knowledge and facilities to benefit from and enjoy them.

I do think it’s important to try to take a relaxed and balanced attitude to things like diet and nutrition, and I have given up paying much attention to the ceaseless dross of media commentary on diet. One year caffeine is bad for you, the next it’s good, ditto a glass of wine. Frankly, I like one or two cups of good coffee a day and a glass of wine with my evening meal, and I am not going to waste any more of my life reading any more articles about whether or not they are good or bad.

Put very simply, I will never know if any scientific publication on the benefits or otherwise of any food is correct, properly balanced and the definitive word on the subject, because there will always be another scientist saying something else next year. What I do know absolutely, is what I like, and my attitude is that I am going to eat what I like and drink what I like, enjoying both variety and moderation in all things. Far too much of modern life is obsessed with telling us as individuals what we should eat, drink, wear, believe etc. (see the Farron and Referendum threads).

Tonight I shall have a small glass of tomato juice, Nigel Slater’s smoked mackerel potato dauphinoise with a side dish of green beans tossed in olive oil, all washed down with a glass of Sauvignon Blanc, and a tangerine to finish. I intend to enjoy every last bit of it.

Obviously Somafunk you have your own choices to make, and I appreciate that your own health and any medical condition will influence your choices. I do recall from your past posts that you like good coffee, good whisky and a hot curry, and long may you and I both continue to enjoy them.

I know, but it’s still pretty well boiled to a mush. I’m no nutritionist, but I don’t consider soup to be a good source of veg, but I’m probably wrong.

It’s just soup for goodness sake. There’s no need to worry about precisely how much nutritional benefit it provides compared with eating food raw or cooking it differently; it just needs to form one small part of a generally balanced diet. The idea that only the most healthy version of a foodstuff should ever be eaten (like brown rice, wholewheat pasta and wholewheat bread) is counter productive: very often it doesn’t taste as good as the regular alternatives and the nutritional difference doesn’t matter that much in the big scheme of things.

More importantly for Golfchick, New Covent Garden soups are currently half price at Tesco (and some other supermarkets), so that’s one or more to add to the online order.

Some suggestions:

A small glass of orange or grapefruit juice with breakfast.

Frozen blueberries are good with porridge (thaw overnight or in microwave), add maple syrup for sweetness (cheaper in bulk from Amazon).

Similarly frozen cherries or good quality honey with greek yoghurt. Toast some almond flakes under the grill to improve it further.

Add apple juice to a bowl of muesli and leave overnight. Thaw and add some frozen berries to it in the morning, maybe with some creme fraiche or greek yoghurt as well.

Before your evening meal have a small glass of tomato juice (or add some lemon juice and Worcester sauce or Tabasco for a Virgin Mary), maybe with a few nuts or olives.

Dried fruit (apricots, prunes and figs) are often a convenient way of eating fruit – the soft/semi-dried organic versions are often nicer, and go well with a piece of cheese.

Finish your lunch and/or evening meal with some fruit (whatever’s in season and is therefore likely to be at its best flavour and also good value, i.e. currently oranges.) Peeling an orange or cutting up an apple is a great way to finish a meal in a relaxed leisurely style.

Pasta is great for almost infinite options of different meals with vegetables (as well as fish and meat), and for relatively quick meals. For example pasta with broccoli, various different tomato based sauces (can be batch cooked and frozen in portions), pasta with peppers, mushrooms, courgettes, aubergines etc. etc. etc.

Given that you are both woking and are unlikely to want to spend any more time than necessary cooking in the evening, I would suggest Diana Henry’s books Simple and Cook Simple (she has also written one about more healthy eating called A Change of Appetite, but I cannot comment on that one).

Cougar, how much moderating are you doing compared with the other moderators? Are you doing a lot more than your ‘fair share’?

If so, whether it’s because you are good at it, because you enjoy it/like spending time on the forum, or because the other moderators are either happy to take a back seat while you are so active or don’t feel able to take up more of the workload (i.e. they don’t want to tread on your toes or appear to push you out), then maybe you do need to step back and encourage the others to be more active (in the same way a manager has to learn to stop doing too much and delegate more). Maybe pass the responsibility for some specific threads, like the Referendum, to other moderators.

TJ’s suggestion of a lower threshold for (shorter) bans also sounds like a good idea, i.e. akin to zero tolerance policies which aim to tackle anti-social activity at an early stage/low level, with increasing penalties for non-compliance (first ban of one week, second ban within 3 or 6 months of two weeks, third ban of four weeks etc.). You need forum users to self-censor, and it may only be the imminent prospect of a ban which makes users think a bit more carefully about their posts.

Surely, if you wear mesh under it, it’s no longer a base layer…..

In my experience two thin close fitting baselayers is the way to go when it gets very cold.

Moreover, in my experience none of the modern, supposedly high wicking, synthetic baselayers offered by the likes of Helly Hansen, Craft, Castelli, Howies etc. are as good as the version of Helly Hansen Lifa sold 30 years ago. The older version of Lifa looked scruffy and was responsible for the ‘Smelly Helly’ nickname, but was very effective. The newer version might look better, but does not perform as well (in the same way that fleece supplanted fibre pile, despite fibre pile’s superior performance on every count except looks/fashion). I think the reason for the superior performance of old Lifa was its rib knit and the ‘bobbly’ surface of the fabric, which gave it its scruffy appearance but also helped the wicking and insulation performance, unlike the very smooth surface finish of modern Lifa tops and similar products from other manufacturers like Craft etc.

The combination of Brynje mesh with an outer baselayer (merino or whatever), is the only product I have found so far to compare with wearing two old Lifa baselayers.

The Brynje of Norway mesh stuff is brilliant – okay, it looks and works like an old school string vest, but it’s deceptively warm in use, wicks and dries super fast and, if you need to vent, to lose heat, it dumps warmth really quickly. It has the downside that you can’t really strip down in the pub or caff without looking like a Right Said Fred wannabe, but functionally it’s brilliant.

Personally I find merino just gets soggy.

For anyone who finds that merino does not work well for them, I would suggest wearing a Brynje synthetic mesh baselayer underneath the merino top. Because the mesh is synthetic and holds the merino away from the skin, you shouldn’t get the unpleasant and chilling feel of heavily sweat saturated wool against the skin, but you do get the benefit of wool’s superior insulation performance. Brynje themselves make combined mesh and merino double layer baselayers to exploit the different properties of the two fabrics.

Even some synthetic baselayers can feel clammy when saturated with sweat, and a mesh baselayer underneath them should similarly improve their performance, i.e both feeling drier because only the synthetic mesh is in contact with the skin and warmer because air is trapped in the mesh gaps between the skin and outer baselayer.

I think neon green and yellow stand out more than pink in the daytime (whereas at night/when lights are on reflectives are more important). Showers Pass offer this neon waterproof jacket which also has some reflective fabric.

I would also suggest looking at women’s professional team kits (although the choice and availability to purchase is nowhere near as good as the men’s). The pro team strips are designed to be eye catching, because they are advertising. Very often the most eye catching kits are also the most hideous/tasteless, which is no bad thing: if it looks so awful that drivers can’t help noticing it and thinking it looks awful, then that means they have registered the presence of the cyclist.

She might also like to consider getting a mirror. SJS Cycles have a good range here[/url], and I particularly like the B&M mirror for drop bars[/url], given that it is often more awkward to look over your shoulder when using drop bars as opposed to flat bars.

The point I am making is that politicians are as human as us, but with the additional scrutiny they face, the contractions that we all suffer from can become exposed and I don’t think it is right to write someone off on that basis alone. Calling them bigot, which I appreciate you probably wouldn’t, does that.

I agree with you, but I just couldn’t resist (sorry)…

letting everyone whose pension schemes are invested in shares lose their money

The argument that the shareholders of ‘too large to fail’ banks and other companies are pension funds, and that by implication it is ordinary people who will suffer if the companies are not bailed out by public money, is ultimately specious. Investment entails both potential risk and reward, and the job of pension fund managers is to manage the risk by ensuring that their funds are not excessively exposed to any one company or sector. Even more importantly, it is their responsibility as owners/shareholders to exercise supervision, influence and control over the boards of companies like Carillion, to ensure that the companies themselves are well run. Pension funds need to take a much more pro-active role in the monitoring of the businesses in which they have a stake (to do which, I suspect they need to employ a much higher calibre of people, i.e. individuals with as good an understanding of the businesses and markets as the companies in which they have shares).

5Nm is pretty low, not even hand tight so as long as you’re not ham fisted you should be OK. The only type of things with torques that low are tiny screws and bearing adjusters where you’d be using small size Allen keys only.

5Nm is fairly common for the bolts used on stems. If your bike has a carbon steerer tube, then I would be far more concerned about tightening stem bolts with the correct amount of torque than any other component on the bike, given the potential for overtightening to damage – and possibly result in catastrophic failure of – such a safety critical component.

I would either get one or more of the small bike specific torque tools which have a pre-set torque, or an adjustable torque wrench which has 5Nm nearer the middle of the scale, e.g. 0Nm-15Nm or 0Nm-20Nm. The Norbar brand is often recommended when this subject comes up on the forum.

Matthew 7:1

Whilst the problem may be manifesting itself in cold hands, it will help if the rest of you is well warmed up. I would suggest you put your bike kit on enough time before leaving to allow it to warm up (especially shoes/boots). Running up and down the stairs indoors a couple of times before you set off would also get you warmed up.

The little zip round the bottom of the pogies wont do up due to controls. may have to move them (the controls) inboard a little?

If cold air is flowing though that gap, then as a temporary measure you could use some sticky tape (Sellotape, parcel tape, electrical tape or whatever) to seal it up.

If the pogies are a very loose fit around your fists, is there anything you have which you could line the pogie with (or simply shove into it to pad it out) in order to increase its insulation, e.g. spare socks, baselayer, bubble wrap etc.? Obviously you would need to ensure that this did not interfere with your ability to operate the brakes.

I would make litter picking part of community service for shoplifters.

Shoplifters are not the problem, people who litter are. You are just perpetuating the idea that people do not need to be responsible for their own waste, and that someone else less important/of lower status should do it. Litter picking should be the community service for people who litter.

I’d still expect that the common law principle of ‘innocent until proved guilty’ would apply unless the statue specifically says otherwise

It’s probably not helpful to think of it as overturning the concept of innocent till proven guilty or reversing the burden of proof. Rather it is an inevitable (and appropriate) consequence of modern safety legislation which is goal based and not prescriptive. In other words the legislation requires for example that employers provide safe work equipment or that buildings are constructed to resist the spread of fire. To demand that of employers and builders etc. is unduly onerous unless they are given some guidance or benchmark which they can follow, rather than having to start with a blank sheet of paper and literally figure everything out for themselves from scratch. So the approved documents and codes of practice give them statutory guidance which they can follow and rely on. It’s quite reasonable to say that if they choose to depart from that guidance and do something different, then they should be the ones who have to show that what they did was no worse than if they had followed the statutory guidance. This allows new technology to be introduced, which may be a major improvement on previous practice, but it is only reasonable that those who introduce new technology and practices are responsible for demonstrating that they are as good or better than previous practice.

I suspect one of the issues for the police and CPS regarding any manslaughter prosecution for Grenfell will be that the ‘loophole’ in ADB which supposedly allowed combustible cladding to be used because its function was not insulation (but instead weatherproofing/aesthetic), may make it very difficult to get a conviction for unlawful act manslaughter (if the act of specifying/installing combustible cladding was not unlawful, i.e. a criminal act under Building Regs, then one of the essential requirements for an unlawful act manslaughter conviction is absent).

However, if it is clear from the records and other evidence that the combustible cladding was chosen in the knowledge that they were exploiting a legal loophole, that itself may be evidence of gross negligence manslaughter, i.e. they knew damn well the prohibition on combustible cladding (in insulation) on buildings of that height was for very good reasons of fire safety, and deliberately exploiting that loophole is itself prima facie evidence of gross negligence manslaughter.

That is the case for an ACOP, but can you show me where it says that for the AD? I understand what you say about approved guidance, but approved guidance is not necessarily an ACOP. I agree that the building inspector will challenge you to show how you meet the Regs if you don’t meet the AD, and that you will be allowed to build if you can show that, but that’s not the same as the burden of proof in a prosecution.

Regulation 17 of HASAWA:

17 Use of approved codes of practice in criminal proceedings.

(1)A failure on the part of any person to observe any provision of an approved code of practice shall not of itself render him liable to any civil or criminal proceedings; but where in any criminal proceedings a party is alleged to have committed an offence by reason of a contravention of any requirement or prohibition imposed by or under any such provision as is mentioned in section 16(1) being a provision for which there was an approved code of practice at the time of the alleged contravention, the following subsection shall have effect with respect to that code in relation to those proceedings.

(2)Any provision of the code of practice which appears to the court to be relevant to the requirement or prohibition alleged to have been contravened shall be admissible in evidence in the proceedings; and if it is proved that there was at any material time a failure to observe any provision of the code which appears to the court to be relevant to any matter which it is necessary for the prosecution to prove in order to establish a contravention of that requirement or prohibition, that matter shall be taken as proved unless the court is satisfied that the requirement or prohibition was in respect of that matter complied with otherwise than by way of observance of that provision of the code.

Regulation 7 of the Building Act:

7 Compliance or non-compliance with approved documents.

(1)A failure on the part of a person to comply with an approved document does not of itself render him liable to any civil or criminal proceedings; but if, in any proceedings whether civil or criminal, it is alleged that a person has at any time contravened a provision of building regulations—

(a)a failure to comply with a document that at that time was approved for the purposes of that provision may be relied upon as tending to establish liability, and

(b)proof of compliance with such a document may be relied on as tending to negative liability.

I appreciate that the phrase ‘may be relied upon as tending to establish liability’ is not entirely the same as ‘that matter shall be taken as proved unless the court is satisfied that the requirement or prohibition was in respect of that matter complied with otherwise than by way of observance of that provision of the code’, but the actual fundamental effect will be the same: the onus will be on the defendant to prove that if they did something different to what the approved document required, that it provided at least the same level of protection/safety.

Do you have a reference for that, please, Slowster?

This is Approved Document B, which covers fire safety. The status of the document is briefly covered on page 5, but in essence all such legislation (Building Regs, HASAWA, RTA etc. etc.) will contain clauses empowering the Secretary of State to issue and ‘approve’ guidance to the legislation, thus giving it that legal status. Here are the Building Regulations and you will find repeated references in it to the power of the Secretary of State to issue approved guidance.

compliance with such codes is evidence that you are compliant with the law

Correct

but if you didn’t comply, the prosecutor would have to prove that you didn’t meet the law.

No. The point is that if you do not comply with the AD/ACOP, the onus is on you (not the prosecutor) to show that what you did provided the same level of safety/protection. For example, some types of buildings cannot be designed to comply entirely with ADB (e.g. shopping centres) and have to be designed according to different – but well established, appropriate and accepted – guidance.

The Highway Code is slightly different in that (unsurprisingly) it does not give the option to choose alternatives to complying with the Code.

I would be far less concerned about the debris than about the effect of the work on the structural strength and stability of your party wall. Chimneys often serve a structural function, and it’s not unknown for their removal by people who do not understand what they are doing to cause major structural damage. This is part of the reason for party wall notices: to give you (your expert) the opportunity to review the plans and make sure that the proposed work is structurally safe.

An Approved Document to the Building Regulations is not an “Approved Code of Practice” – an ACOP has special legal status under HSWA.

Incorrect. The Approved Documents to the Building Regulations are ACOPs with that same special legal status: you must either comply with the AD/ACOP or you must be able to show that what you did instead provided the same level of safety/protection. Similarly the Highway Code is not called the ‘Highway Approved Code of Practice’, but it too neverthless has that status.

I’m surprised the police need that sort of expense/amount of officers, as has been said shouldn’t it be the fire service & HSE etc. doing most of the investigation?

The police are undertaking the investigation because of the seriousness of the possible charges, i.e. manslaughter. Although the HSE has more experience of investigating and prosecuting breaches of this type of legislation where there is alleged to be some failure to comply with a technical requirement of an Approved Code of Practice, it would probably be just as – or even more – expensive and a drain on their resources for them to undertake the investigation.

The cost is partly going to be so high because the legislation and Approved Code of Practice were flawed/poorly worded, giving the accused too much wriggle room to choose the unsafe/less safe option when cladding materials were specified etc. while seemingly staying within the law, and that wriggle room will result in prolonged technical arguments in courts involving multiple expert witnesses (= even more expense). If the law and Approved Code of Practice had been less amibiguously worded, the investigation and prosecution would be much simpler.

Another complicating issue is that the combustible cladding was not the only factor: there are reports that the mains gas pipes were not properly installed/enclosed, and that the fire separation between floors and rooms had not been properly maintained, i.e. contractors had drilled holes for pipes in floors and not stopped them up with suitable materials, which allowed fire to spread rapidly between floors.

The defence for each party will therefore argue that were it not for these other factors, the deaths might/would not have happened. In other words even more expert witness argument about which factors were decisive.

Obviously, before it even goes to the CPS for a charging decision, never mind to court, these issues have to be investigated by the police and they will need to get the prosecution’s expert witness opinion evidence in advance, in order to consider whether it will be strong enough to get a conviction.