We tried the chilli powder thing to try and deter rabbits from a large area of lawn. Catering packs of chilli mixed with vinegar down all the burrow entrances.

I suspect we now have bunnies that just quite like curry.

You need to show them you are the dominant cat and its YOUR territory.

Take a bigger shit than them.

In the 1950s my dad was done for being “drunk in charge” and cycling the wrong way up a one way street.

It made the front page of the Slough Express! Simpler times

I don’t have much of a problem with my neighbours hot tub apart. Although it occasionally sounds like a Lancaster bomber taking off, he only uses it in summer and has it inside a sort of three sided hut,(which seems to defeat the point of it).

Its his **** “water feature” right up against the boundary that sounds like Niagra falls that really pisses me off.

turn it around.

What if a (presumably) middle aged roadie had emptied his bidon over the head of a random 12 year old kid, for a laugh?

Hijinks or assault?

The way I see* it,

Glasses eye tests are about £20-25 which involve about an hour of my time, lots of expensive equipment and several different qualified/semi-qualified professionals.

The cost of the glasses must subsidise the cost of the eye tests.

When I was wearing contact lenses all the testing was “free” as that was included in the price of the lenses.

*in my reasonably priced varifocals and free pair of sunnies

So maybe 2 weeks work for 90% of the kids or a day or two for 20% dragged out over 3 years so that the 90% can learn at the rate of the 10%

Jesus, two weeks of learning nothing but times tables. That would put everyone off maths for life!

You do realise they are being taught a lot of other complicated academic stuff at the same time?

And there are plenty of other non-academic things being taught in those years that wouldn’t have been taught in the 60s/70s/80s that might possibly be more important than times tables – like respect, equality, diversity, tolerance

I like Mora knives. £8 – £12 for a carbon blade you can shave with and is really easy to sharpen. Or about £20 for a carbon stainless laminate (although they are specialist wood carving knives).

The sheaths are a bit shit though.

“tin up!”, “tin down!”

in my neck of the woods that was “oil up!, oil down!”

Bart’s as in Bartholemew’ maps

Think I’ve still got a set somewhere, with all the youth hostels ringed in pencil.

Freewheel (now freehub)
Freewheel block (now freehub + cassette)
Friction shifters (or can you still get them?)
Down tube shifters
mechanical odometers
rain cape?
hairnet helmet

**** hell. I hope the Welsh never twig what they’re being called.

Peter Sutcliffe
Fred West
Myra Hindley
Jimmy Saville

A good focus for the Two Minute Hate

Obviously any choices would need to be quickly removed if it came to light their choice was a homophobic, racist, nazi sympathizer.

Or whatever the current bogeymen will be in 50/60 years time.

Wasn’t there someone on here a long time ago asking odd questions about a bike. A lot of the response were “you need two bikes” It turned out that he was 15 and could only afford one.

Somebody replied with something like “I’m 47 with 10 bikes and I would give them all away to be 15 again”

Meanwhile in the real (not boomer) world…

Mrs SWSD is now a week and a half into teaching her “bubble” (15 kids plus 2 adults).

They’re reasonable good at social distancing within the bubble (but not perfect). The kids have even invented new social distancing playground games. There is no contact with any other bubble. Of course, after school the kids all tend to wander off together anyway.

She’s a bit frazzled as its 100% pupil contact time including lunchtime and break time. But I think she quiet enjoying it. She thinks she’s getting some real teaching done, perhaps because there is not much planning – last week she chucked in stuff about viruses, epidemics and hygiene. This week its been the history of slavery and race relations.

She was a bit worried this morning as one of the kids has been off sick for two days. If it was CV that’s the whole bubble in self isolation for 14 days. As she’s not come home early I guess it wasn’t CV.

One would like to think they weren’t (as would I ) but the evidence is stacked against us I’m afraid.

I am not an etymologist but … the concepts of slavery, rape , warfare , murder etc. exist in all indo-European languages, so they have been around since at least 4000BC when proto-indo-European emerged somewhere on the steppes.

Humans are the current apex animal on this planet. They are not nice.

I wonder if there are any languages where these concepts don’t exist?

Yeah? I’m willing to bet that you’d lose. All the evidence suggests that all the monuments scattered around the British Isles, and there are likely hundreds of them, were constructed by entire communities over very extended periods of time, often involving huge feasts and celebrations, the construction methods used were sophisticated and needed teamwork to succeed.

Doesn’t mean the people who built it weren’t forced labour.

Archaeologists in Britain tend to have quite a rose tinted view of our ancient past. Probably because they are all hand wring liberals and can’t imagine that anybody might do anything nasty.

EDIT: Until of course we get into historical times when everybody suddenly gets very nasty for some reason.

A cheap shonky conversion may not add any value. A really good conversion might, but not necessarily by as much as was spent in the conversion.

a global pandemic which has so far killed six and a half million people and counting.

Has it?

Travel Scrabble anyone?

Its a GCHQ misinformation project.

Now there’s no chemtrails, the government need 5g to control your brainwaves.

If everyone owns a neat little gadget that “protects” them from 5G, the government have successfully covered their tracks.

Tories tend to have posh accents, which the British are conditioned to obey.

Plus trade unions and stuff that happened 40 years ago.

Reception kids not licking an biting each other because its “not allowed”. Kids at playtime remembering to stay in a two meter square and not go near anyone else.

Think I might take those stories with a pinch of salt.

Yeah, the teachers want a heroic death but those pesky unions are getting in the way!!

Or as Boris would say:

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori

Not used one in anger yet, but I’ve prepared a buff and a “proper” mask that looks like one of those old Dr Whites sanitary products.

I can’t work out how to wear them without making my glasses steam up though. Is there a knack?

I’ll probably be more dangerous blundering about with one than seeing where I’m going without.

Giant went from random manufacturer of bog standard frames to crazy innovators before dropping back into the mainstream again

I have fond memories of my Giant NRS. My only full susser and only bought because it seemed all the XC guys in my cycle club were riding them. If it hadn’t got nicked I would still be riding it.

The OS Maps app is free to use with open source maps. You pay a subscription to use it with OS mapping. You could always try out the app without paying anything.

Same frame is it not? Both 531 and naff all difference between the two, Mirage just has sportier components. So I assumed anyway.

The Mirage I had was Reynolds 500 and about the third the price of a Galaxy. They may have re-used the name though.

Most expensive bike in the shop at the time was one of those swanky new Moulton AM7s at about £750. I wish I had one of those.

Viagra.
I have no idea why they named it after a waterfall.

I do.

Once again the generation gap rears it’s head. 20 years before my time.

Probably why no one on here seems to remember the Dawes Ranger from 1984/5 (I think). Full Reynolds 531st, built in UK and way out of my price range. Massively long and slack – so I think the geometry is back in fashion again!

Thought I had a Galaxy but it turns out its a Mirage so betterer

I had a Mirage. Used it off road too often and bent the frame. Definitely not betterer than a Galaxy.

Cilit Bang? – probably stings a bit

Chater Lea
Mafac
Stronglight

If your looking at components

Specialites TA
Brooks (I know they’re overpriced retro chique now)
Sturmey Archer

Brompton

The Fiat 500 of bicycles

Dawes – Because of the Galaxy and the Ranger (first UK mass produced ATB?)
Peugeot – cos “everybody” had a a cheap Peugeot ATB/ 10 speed racer.
Raleigh – Maverick – what you bought if you could afford something better than the Peugeot ATB
Specialised – for hardrock/rockhopper/stumpjumper
Orange – when they made proper bikes
Colnago – but only when they were really hand made in Italy
Chas Roberts

and purely because I’ve owned one
Fondriest
Bianchi
Pat Rohan
Thorn (SJS Cycles)

Question is, do we believe C19 deaths will be down at 100 deaths today after returns to work and (some) schools going back and all that?

But there will be at least a 2 to 3 week lag between any changes today and changes in death rates. I don’t think you’ll see the effect for a little while.

That was a Terry Pratchett reference. In real life cats will often eat the green wobbly bit.

Beg to differ. My cats never did. Terry was a cat lover so presumably got the idea through observation.

I always thought the green wobbly bit was the stomach and full of acid.

EDIT: Thinking about this, I only know this because of the presence of random green wobbly bits on my kitchen floor. I suppose there COULD be times when they ate the green wobbly bits, leaving no evidence at all.

Judging by the way my cats ate mice/rats/rabbits, the head is the tastiest part.

Just remember – don’t eat the green wobbly bit.

Robins are pretty brutal to other robins. They sometimes fight each other to the death.

But they look cute so nobody calls them thugs or wants to shoot them with an air rifle.

rooks mob ravens

Round our way the rooks mob the red kites. Both amazing but different types of flyer so its really something to watch. Like messerchmits attacking a Lancaster.

On excess deaths – According to the BBC

These 50,745 “extra deaths” are largely attributed to the pandemic.

The total seen so far in this first phase of the epidemic is roughly comparable to the winter of 2017/18, when England and Wales saw approximately 50,000 more deaths than they would ordinarily see during the summer months.

So with lockdown, the UK has managed to limit deaths to the equivalent of what presumably was a bad flu season?