I’d also imagine they’d be handy on a bike, or when driving – a simple glance to your wrist to decide whether you can ignore the call

That would be quite useful, but probably not woth the extra money the watch would cost (unless it was bundled with the phone).

it would save battery life on the phone itself because the screen would not be lit all the time to view stuff.

But presumably you would have to have Bluetooth switched on all the time, and you would also have to charge a second battery.

I wonder is there a specific technique to doing that? Do you trace over a photo or a projection and put the details on top, or is it done entirely free hand?

I wish I had the patience to have a go

Thankyou for your analysis of my superiority. In the last 15 years I have transitioned through 4 different industries to find employment. I know what it’s like. I still couldn’t justify funding uneconomic or pointless industry just to avoid telling somebody bad news. All it ends up with is more people doing it and more to upset. If you can’t deal with it grow a pair.

Oh for heaven’s sake, I knew I shouldn’t have used the word “miner”. It still gets the Thatcherites frothing around the mouth and completely missing the point.

Yes I suppose I could “grow a pair”, but I prefer to feel some sympathy for people who “there but for the grace of God”.

should we pay them to keep going down a hole and scratch round at rocks all day long?

Of course not. But try putting yourself in the shoes of a highly skilled person of advancing age whose entire industry suddenly disappears.

Its easy to feel superior when you don’t think it will happen to you.

Why would it be surprising that certain existing jobs would disappear? It happens all the time. People adapt as they always have done.

Try telling that to a 55 year old miner.

Populations adapt, as they have always done. Individuals aren’t the same as populations.

Was she worth it?

Yep sounds goo to me.

You missed the bit about needing good luck.

Its a myth that you can achieve anything you want through just throuhg hard work. And its this myth that is sold to generation right wing every since they were in nursery school.

Actually, I know a few people who through talent, hard work and quite a bit of luck are in the situation where they don’t need to work a full week in order to maintain a (to them) acceptable material lifestyle.

They use the free time to purse other things which don’t give any monetary reward.

Are they happy and fulfilled even though they dont have to work hard for a living? I think so, but I’m just jealous.

It has. Do you really think your grandparents had time to fanny about with bicycles in the woods at the weekend? They had stuff to do.

Well one set of grandparents spent their summers in their second home in Cornwall. The other set was forced to subsistence farm somewhere in Siberia.

If given the choice, I think the ones in Siberia might have preferred to live a life of luxury in a technological utopia .

There’s no nobility to HAVING to work HARD for a living if all you get is grinding poverty and an early death.

Generally better for you than having it handed on a plate.

Why? What if it frees you up to write that symphony you’ve always wanted to write, or pursue that interesting line of research that might transform society?

Or even just give you time to appreciate the beauty of the world around you?

The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money!

As I’ve said before we don’t live in a communist country.

Why do you associate not having to work hard for a living with socialism? Look at the worlds most sucessfull communist state. Do you think all they do in China is practice Tai Chi all day?

Its nowt to do with outdated left wing v. right wing politics.

One bloke banned for drink driving bought one to get back and too to the pub.

brilliant

I’ve just come back from 2 weeks in Egypt, and the resort was 80% Russians..

How did you know they were Russians? Did they have snow on their boots?

Malvern Rider has a point.

Whats so ****ing laudable about HAVING to work hard for a living?

I wish moderrn technology could be used to give us all more quality free time instead of making us more “productive”.

The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living.’

Sounds like a good ambition to me.

So after all these years a communist state has worked out how to win the cold war.

Just buy your enemies. Very Terry Pratchett

“Let others boast of martial dash
For we have boldly fought with cash
We own all your helmets, we own all your shoes.
We own all your generals – touch us and you’ll lose.!”

The point is that the rewards, whatever you define these as, are down to you

Perhaps your right. Perhaps we should dismantle the whole state apperatus. Then teachers and nurses and firemen could charge you what they are really worth and make a bit of money for themselves.

What is does is make society more meritocratic.

If my “merit” you mean the ability to make lots of money. And success to be measured by the size of your house and newness of your car.

I know a few 1/2 cat road racers who use SPD MTB pedals and shoes. You’ll be find.

Flexible soles make it easier to walk (though less efficient to pedal). You can still slide A over T on a fully rigid MTB shoe :oops:

Well off Lefties.

But those who have a decent job who still thinks its acceptable to support the Labour party. Utter morons of the highest order.

People who think the modern labour party is somehow “left wing”.

so,

Is coffee the new HiFi?

Any road bike should be able to cope with a hopping kerbs and a bit of canal towpath (with appropriate tyres).

Have you considered a proper disc equipped tourer? Should be good for everything unless you want to ride really fast or go over really rough stuff.

When I was getting into cycling, string backed leather mitts were what marked you out as a “proper” cyclist (along with the hairnet crash helmet for proper racers)

I still wear proper leather mitts as they make me feel superior to all the Johnny come latelys.

But think how stinky your saddle would get with no shorts between it and your bum!

I thnk you’ll find a nice leather saddle helps here

Youths whose kecks come to just below their buttocks.

And girls who forget to put a skirt over their tights before they go out.

Awful awful places full of misery and drudgery

Shh….There’s good money in sending tourists off to far flung parts of the world to see misery and drugery. A whole industry might collapse if people realise they can get the same 3rd world experience just off the M5.

Spa Cycles are doing a stronglight SS chainset for £20.

I’d quite like it if bike shops offered part exchange. It’d save the hassle of selling privately.

Getting hit on the head by a jaffa cake wouldn’t hurt particularly though would it,

It would if it was a stale one.

Would these interest rates apply to savings as well?

You could amke a bit of money like that. Borrow in a low rate post code and save the loan in a high rate post code.

16th Sept 1992. Though it was 10% – 15%. in one day. Not 4-17%.

That was Black Wednesday.

I suppose we just need Tuesday, Thursday and Friday to complete the set.

Imagine the utter mess we would be in if balls and sillyband got their way and chose to spend money the country didn’t have to get out of the recession.

It may have worked better than this lot, or it may not. A lot of people seem to think it would have worked. Impossible to tell unless we could run the experiment in a parallel universe.

The principle of council housing should be about providing support for those who genuinely cannot afford their own and not a way to subsidise those who do not need that support but just want to spend more of their disposable income on “stuff”.

That sounds like an orthodoxy now, but had the trousers of time bifurcated down the other leg in the 70s/80s you might be thinking it completely natural that the state should provide good quality low cost housing to most of it citizens.

probably more accurately, the collective greed of people to buy a house for peanuts and make a near instant profit, has contributed to the housing issues we have today

In fairness to Mrs T, and “mad mike” Heseltine who actually implemented the 1980 Housing Act, at least they allowed councils to charge something for their housing stock. I believe some Conservatives at the time thought long standing council tenants should be given their houses for no charge.

I remember when my then GF and I had signed out lives away on an Endowment mortgage of all of £42k

I remember being sold a 45k endowment by a 17 year old Gordon Gecko wannabe who went to great lengths explaining how we could pay off the original loan and still have 40k cash to spend. I wish I could meet him now . . .

It may have started in the 70s but I think our obsession really took off during the 80s when Margaret Thatcher extended the existing “right to buy” schemes and introduced us to the phrase “property owning democracy”. She also made it easier to obatain mortgages (i think?)

In the late 80s it was definately a accepted topic of dinner party conversation you could buy t-shirts with “I don’t give a shit what your house is worth” printed on them.

Those who can, do

Those who can’t, teach

Those who can’t teach, become OFSTED inspectors.

Biritish Cycling and CTC eventy entry forms used to say something like “the event takes place in a public place. If you don’t want your child photographed, don’t enter them in the event”.

Did this on part of the Olympic TT route in 2012, including the start/finish. It was great fun, including getting cheered on by thousands of pissed up spectators.

The marshals were told it was OK to let people ride. But obvioulsy its a different lot organising the TdF.

So you still can’t come up with evidence that “the majority of the people don’t actually understand the process of GM and sadly believe rubbish that is printed”, despite having had since yesterday to find some ?

Tell you what ernie. Why don’t you come up with some convincing evidence that the majority of the people DO actually understand the process of GM and DON’t believe rubbish that is printed?

Licking Shakleton’s posts. Feel I’ve actually learned something about GM there.

Don’t get me wrong I, erm, appreciate boobs, but when you think about it, it’s a bit of a weird thing to get excited about.

Amateur anthropologist mode here:

Mainly male scientists have defined our whole genus (or species or whatever it is) by the fact women have boobs.

Humans are the only primate where the female has permanently swollen mammary glands. There must be a reason for this – and its probably to attract blokes.

So don’t worry, it may be weird, but its hard wired into your head. :-)

Bit of a silly example though

Not really. I know people who have been in this situation.

I don’t understand this idea that kids are only entitled to live in the family home until they start earning and then they have to pay for the privilege

What if your kids were say 26 and earning more than you. Wouldn’t you expect them to contribute to the running costs of the household?