danderousbeans – If the NHS is at fault for something shouldn’t some sort of compensation be available?

Unemployment isn’t always a useful guide to the state of a countries economy.

Increased mechanisation in industry means less jobs and an increased technical aptitude being required in those jobs remaining means that the unskilled labour market has been getting smaller for a very long time.

Without retraining for some there are just no jobs available and for the rest they have mechanisation and foreign labour/production to compete with. But of course certain industries do thrive in such time and contribute towards the GDP.

Who?

No, I’ve been ‘sootyandjim’ for a very long time.

BTW, I’m no conservative voter, am a union member, am a supporter of socialist policies and have never considered myself a fan of Thatcher, but I’m not so blind as to not see what a mess this country was in when Thatcher took power and how much better it was for many when the reins were handed back to Labour.

Of course not all the current mess is down to Labour, but they have spent along time in power doing pretty much sweet FA other than tinker with Tory policies, enter into dubious wars and spend like drunk chavs with an Amex card in Elizabeth Duke whilst we should have been putting money away (as a country I mean, my wife and I saved a fair chunk but unfortunately its not worth as much now due to the slashing of interest rates).

I’m not arguing about her support for dodgy regimes RB, but the country was pretty much the basket case of Europe when she took the reins and managed to turn it around.

How she did this of course is another hugely controversial point again, little of what she did was uncontroversial, but the Conservatives left the country in a better position when Labour took over than it had been when Labour were last in power.

Where about in the White Peak did you ride?

What can you expect from a service which sees such a small percentage of the budget thrown its way. 🙄

If its any consolation, the birthing suite my wife gave birth to my daughter in had all the window blinds hanging in tatters, a pile of dirty hospital scrubs piled in the corner and some unknown brown substance smeared across one of the walls and no, it wasn’t in some 3rd world country, rather it was in Epsom General Hospital.

Now days my family are all covered by private healthcare (free from work). The NHS may patch me up when I crash on my bike but I’m not staying in one of their disgusting wards or waiting forever for further treatment.

IHN – Posh girls are in my experience pretty filthy too.

It was a posh (6th form) girl who made me a man many years ago at boarding school. Tied me to a tree and then did all the work she did.

She must have wanted a bit of scholarship student rough or something.

Well Nottingham has taken a fair dusting in the last hour though its now abated.

Of course some would argue Thatcher performed CPR on an already completely screwed up Britain.

Whilst she may not have cured the problem completely she certainly stopped it going completely to the wall.

That’ll be Rays MTB Park[/url] then, in Cleveland, Ohio.

The XC course, whist better than nowt is basically there to allow locals to ride in the winter as they have proper snow in that part of the world.

The rest of it gets a fair bit of use in the summer though as its all jump boxes, ‘shore’ type stuff and other assorted hippity hoppity type stuff.

How many years did GB have to bin those ‘bad’ Tory policies?

How long is long enough to be in power and not have the luxury of blaming a previous government for the countries ills?

She was alright when she was younger, but not a touch on the other English Kate.

Hmm, chicks with guns.

It’ll all end in tears if you get it dirty.

Prop it outside Starbucks next to the fixed gear bikes, that’ll impress them and save it getting dirty.

Hora – Whilst its not all the fault of the banks and I agree that idiots who would rather spend on a new 42″ plasma TV than pay their mortgage should have little sympathy, the waving of 125% mortgages in front of people’s faces whilst everyone and their dog (that’ll be Phil and Kirsty I’ve described) seemingly calling people without their own property some sort of untermenchen was also pretty irresponsible.

Do you understand what a 125% mortgage means?

Yes, people entering into such mortgages should have read the small print also but whilst the world around you is saying “house prices will only continue to rise as we live on an island/there is limited stock/etc” and the PM is grinning like an idiot and saying “no more boom and bust” weaker minded people will get caught up in it and panic.

Ultimately the banks were greedy, they wanted any money they could get and for a while they got it. Now they’re all sobbing and asking the taxpayer to bail them out, which will include those taxpayers who were stupid enough to buy with a 125% mortgage, lose their house and now also cry to the government that it wasn’t their fault.

Of course at the end of the day it’ll be us thrifty taxpayers who front the bill for all these idiots, both bankers and those who’ve lost their houses.

But banks are only interested in making back what they are owed so its not in their interest to hold out for the best price.

The place has probably been repossessed to be auctioned off. He wants to make sure the ******* ****** *****ing man gets as little as possible for it.

Apparently its getting very common now. Folk ripping out everything they can sell, including light fittings, radiator, boilers and anything else they can remove without causing the house to fall down around them.

Can’t say I blame them to be honest. If someone was going to repossess your house wouldn’t you want to make it as expensive as possible for them to do anything with it afterwards?

Touring notes of the Falklands, as used by some folk I know in the RAFCC

You were beaten by ‘human production’?

What were you bidding for?

That picture of the Hoffmeister is really messing with my head.

Lets not be too hard on the lad. I remember seeing at XC races ‘back in the day’ weight obsessed also-rans who drilled holes in their brake levers, v-brake/canti arms, crank arms and all manner of “well actually that metal is probably there for a reason” type bike parts.

He may be an idiot but he is far from alone.

That is Cannock Chase’s number freeride God, dontchaknow.

Hope you heal quickly, sounds like a nasty accident that could have been a lot worse.

Of course some would say body armour is overkill for mtbing. 🙄

Are there any mountain bike clubs in Norfolk?

Just as flat as some parts of the Netherlands but slightly more backwards.

😉

Its not a bad idea.

It might stop people constantly reposting the same ads day after day pushing the ads by less impatient people down the list.

Of course the tight ar$es wouldn’t like it (and there are plenty of them on this site) and would probably go elsewhere, such as Bike Tragic.

Mountain BIking in Iraq

Having recently ridden both and having ridden CyB ‘back in the day’ I’d still say CyB is a far superior trail centre than Afan.

Of course both are good so no matter which you chose you’ll enjoy yourself but don’t be put off by the old farts and naysayers over CyB, its still a cracking place to ride and the few fireroad climbs that you have to do were the same fireroad climbs you had to do in days of yore. Of course if those self same naysayers had actually ridden at CyB back then and now they’d know that.

SSC ate my hamster.

He could always throw his phone at the telly next time Top Gear is on.

RudeBoy – I believe that was shown to be a photoshop job, although you can believe such mistakes weren’t beyond Bush.

Thank you Coffeeking.

Can someone ‘fail’ this picture?

Here comes the pain!

Good start Marmite.

BTW, is Jelly Wrestling a recognised sport?

Nina from Nina and the Neurons?

Del – Is that actually moving or is the guy frantically trying to get it started?

If its moving then congratulations to Lotus, they seem to have cracked that engineering thing at last.