Well I thought it was down to the atmosphere, but apparently it's just an optical illusion.

The Moon Illusion[/url]

I am not convinced though.

Who cares? Posh people are generally a bit of a pain in the butt, wherever they hail from!

I bet a lot more heard it!

Had 2 Bosch and one Miele.

When the Miele died, I bought a Bosch which lasted about 10 years before needing a set of brushes, then the driver board burned out a couple of weeks later.

Still bought another Bosch as it was cheap. I was also mindful of the fact that modern machines aren't engineered to last and that the missus canes the life out of these things day in day out.

LG sounds promising. Might give them atry next time.

Thugby – yawn!

And maybe get a new bank account number for safety reasons.

Lesson #1 for today, don't buy SRAM chains.

What about "Don't try to do wheelies" ?

P.S. Sand will destroy your bike, rapidly!

It's time we adopter the US approach -overtaking inside as well as outside. That'd wake the middle lane hogging Mr McGoo's up!

I'd ban weights and any bulking up exercises. Cardio exercise is essential, but they don't need expensive gym equipment for this.

We lock up dangerous thugs to protect the public right?

It is therefore rather stupid to allow these volatile dangerous people to to equip themselves to become more able to impose their will on others through intimidation and violence!

The money saved on gym equipment could be channelled towards improving counselling and psycotherapy. However, if an offender doesn't want to change, they won't!

I think there are many offenders who could use a bit of assistance in learning how to deal with difficult situations without the need to become overbearing, or to lash out.

It's a crying shame the victims aren't the focus here!

I find this nonsense about prisoners needing a way of channelling their frustrations into bodybuilding kinda irriting! This point of view smacks of the "what about my human rights" complaining we're so used to hearing. The "hand it to me on a plate" culture that is devoid of a single shred of personal responsbility!

Most people work on learning calm self-control, so why are these prisoners a special case? They put themselves in prison and entirely at the great expense of the tax payer, so what right have they got to determine what benefits they get?

Personal responsiblity, self-respect, self-control and respect for others is what they need to gain from prison, not muscle mass!

95% of a incadesant lamp energy dissapates in heat so in the winter yer house is cold and your heating has to make up for the 95 watt of heat lost from a 100w lamp

True, but a boiler is more efficient at producing heat and a unit of gas is cheaper than a unit of electricity.

The best thing to do is to insulate and draft proof your house. That'll more than compensate for the loss of heating by your lighting.

Also, turning your thermostat down a degree or two will save you a packet.

I shaved around 15% off the number of units of energy I use by turning unused appliances and lights off, turning the thermostat down and slightly shortening the period of time the heating is on.

More recently i have been fitting loe enegy lamps. I get mine in the Range for £0.99. 14w are very bright.

No point trying to rationalize about money and public spending with a socialist tron!

They have no capacity to understand the commercial world and are just jealous of those who have money.

They want everything handed to them on a plate, for free!

When a socialist gets into power, they deploy their Robin Hood ideology and naively assume that government money comes from a bottomless pit. There will be handouts and widespread waste, left right and centre,usually to the least deserving cases, to the detriment of normal tax payers.

E.G. The cushy benefit system has locked working class people out of the jobs market creating an new underclass and Fxxkwads like Jack Straw welcomed "with open arms" people from poorer countries to come here and work, to fill the vacancies that were unecomic for benefits claimants to apply for. France and Germany both put a restriction on migration because they realised how destabilizing this would be

Left to get on with it, socialists will blow everything and run up huge debt, leaving the commercial world to languish under a sea of regulation and restriction. In the end, we'd end up with a situation like there was in Russia 30 years ago, nothing will work, we'll all be reliant on the state and there will be no food in the shops – a communist state!

Don't waste your breath on them tron, it's utterly futile! They will be banging on about their ideology for ever and will continually try to undermine real progress.

They are the true enemy of the state.

I'm really sorry to hear about your plight!

I can barely believe how some women are so incredibly vindictive! Spiteful empty souls, who don't have an ounce of humanity, or compassion towards those they deem as having wronged them. Sad!

Involving the CSA was/is a dumb move because the money you pay goes into a big pot and gets dished out to other mothers of absent fathers. So a proportion of your money is going to strangers' children who's fathers have managed to disappear without paying a penny. Grossly unfair to the fathers of those who want to/ have had to do the right thing for their offspring!

If she'd got a brain, she would have got her lawyer to make you pay her maintenance so your children benefitted solely.

Using the children as a bargaining tool is a really low stunt. You should have as much access as you want!

The law needs to change to make the balance between couple equal and therefore fair.

Perhaps you might want to highlight to her the fact that the more she damages you, the worse it will be for the children (she can't change the fact that you are their dad). Also, one day, the children will be old enough to judge her. She might want to think about that too.

I hope you get you life back on track.

As a seller, if I hadn't received the payment from you, there's no way I would send the lens, or send a cheque for what you have alleged to have paid me. I would have no problem with a police investigation either.

A definite rogue!

I'm sure you already know this, but if asked, don't give him your bank details!

How about ham and cheese? 😆

Insurance companies are having a good drink from all the parents rich enough to pay these ridiculously high premiums. What they are in effect sayin is "we don't want your business, ut if we must, we'll have 3 times as much as we need off you".
I'm not condoning it, but is there any wonder why so many youngsters don't bother with insurance.

That isn't audiophile equipment and RCA splitters are a no no!

❗ I have faith in lager and real ale.

If you aren't too a young person – insurance premiums are daft for younger dirvers and if you have funds to put a decent deposit on a car, take the money. Taking a benfit in kind such as a company car and a fuel card could still push you into the higher tax bracket. If you can opt out of a fuel card, do it! The fuel card was what killed the company car for me. I calculated that I would have needed to do 14000 private miles a year to break even on what i'd have paid in tax for that card. My then employer had no alternative, so this forced the switch.

It also depends on how generous the company car on offer is versus the car allowance, but doing limited business mileage usually means it's well worth considering buying your own car as it won't devalue due the to starship mileage.

If you choose a company car, you are usually stuck with it for 3-4 years even if it's unreliable, uncomfortable, becomes unsuitable for your needs, ot you just get fed up with it.

Best thing I ever did was getting rid of my company car – it enabled me to buy a decent car with the money I would otherwise have paid in tax. All of a sudden, the IR were paying me money instead of me paying them.

26 was my penultimate shagging age.

Had more excitement than at any other time in my life.

Had a great job, was single, my own place, good holidays.

Now how did I do that? (I really have no clue)

konabunny – Member

Now that I LIKE…

Works in IT, posts on STW, likes Audi estates…

Works in IT – Not at the moment, but would love to get back into it.
Posts on STW – Erm, yep!
Likes Audi Estates – Has owned one for past 9 years.

Is there a pattern forming here?

That Cayenne will cost about £8 Squillion every time it goes in the Porsche workshop!

According to the "Mr Clutch" ad. on this page, i've saved £200 and a trip to a garage.

Thanks for your kind offers to loan me your wind back tools, but I was able to easily wind the rear pistons back in with central heating pump pliers and a woodworking clamp.

The rear discs replacement took about 15 minutes each – a doddle! I didn't need to remove the caliper mounting bracket as I discovered that the discs would come on and off while the brackets were still in situ. Good job, given that the allen bolts holding them on were stuck fast (rusted in permanently). There was no way i could have got any leverage on them without getting the car on a ramp, or using air tools, so that was lucky.

Also did the other front caliper. The caliper mounting bracket bolts which fix into the wishbone came undone with comparitive ease this time, no thread stripping, no drama. That disc and pad swap was a doddle too.

If only the other front disc had been so straightforward. I wonder why both the offside bolts were corroded and fused whilst the nearside one's weren't. Weird!

So i'm now just waiting for the M12 helicoil kit to arrive tomorrow and hopefully within an hour, i'll be testing out these new disc brakes and pads.

£25 a corner ain't too bad.

The other caliper bolts aren't 8mm as suggested previously, they are 7mm (or close to that). A size you can't easily buy.

This odd size was surely created to discourage owners tackling the simple job of changing disc pads.

Not a problem if you have a bench grinder and plenty of old allen keys!

The said discs arrived. Went to fit them today. Got the front caliper off but with some bother – the bolts were rusted firm.

Fitted the new disc after getting the old one off, which was also was rusted on firm. Then noticed what looked like helicoils on the bolts, argh!!! Now waiting for a helicoil kit!

Will be tackling the other three discs to see what surprizes they throw up too.

Trouble is that I need to have the brakes working even with the car out of action, or else the car will roll away!

Much easier to take your car to a garage. With cars, I forgot how a simple job is always becomes more complicated due to decay and corrosion.

It's tough luck being skint! The price you pay for being one of the car owning minority! 😈

TandemJeremy – Member

could do spongebob but I'll just have a go at one thing – its nothing to do with parking – its planning policies that have caused the out of town shopping phenomenon. It the Netherlands there was a blanket ban on most types of out of town shopping centre. Thus they town centres still survive as town centres.

We need proper parking enforcement to uphold the rights of the non car owning majority

Non-car owning majority? Are you suggesting that the majority of non-car owners don't have access to a car? How daft!

You also clearly don't run a business on a British high street and haven't ever had a converstation with a business owner!

Yes, I walk to my high street. It's 3 minutes away, but the charity shops and estate agents aren't much use to me. I don't want to spend £3 on a coffee either. We did have a very useful car parts shop, but this got replaced with yet another nail bar.

If I want to go proper shopping, I have to drive!

Predictable commercial "head in the sand" response cynic-al!

I blame councils and their dumb parking policies for starters!

It got much worse when Police handed parking control over to councils and all the well trained traffic wardens got replaced with "parking attendants" – an especially low form of life!

Councils sell us this notion that cars parked everywhere is a problem, but they haven't yet worked out that cars transport people, who have money to spend in these businesses – that's just about all of us!

Human beings will always take the route of least resistance, hence the success of out of town shopping centres with free parking.

The truth is that councils let the contractors who they "subbed" the parking enforcement out to, to place ever stringent restrictions in order to generate more penalty notices – more profit! It's happened in my town and problems were created where none had existed, when they expanded the controlled zone. There is now a second review which will extend the problems further. The only place they seem to have missed in the the new plans is the main council estate. A few outlying streets remain free of restriction. Commuters and residents of soon to be controlled streets will park there soon, causing further complaints. In the end, they will have to yellow line the whole town! It's ok where we live because most people can afford the permit fees and fines, but the council have failed to address the issues and have in effect placed a further tax on residents (like residents aren't alreasdy paying enough). And we'll role over and pay because we are the passive majority – the cash cows! Businesses have suffered greatly as a result of this.

As the Uniform Business rate is collected by central government, there is no direct financial incentive for councils to help nurture small businesses in their local community. They can get money from parking, but as they have no ability to run anything efficiently, it gets contracted out. As they also aren't very good at negotiating, we often get very bad value for money with these contracts, but the council tax still goes up well above the rate of inflation each year! They cut services at the same time, but the increases go on paying the pensions of retired council employees. The funding from central government gets capped and this is another reason they force us to make up the shortfall.

The other issue is that there are too many local authorities and there is a lot of confusion and apparent "buck passing". Why do we need to have a town council, a district council and a county coucil? Surely all should be rolled into one accountable organisation with local offices meeting specific local needs and then a reporting heirarchy back to the head office!?

If we had some intelligent thinking about the practicalities faced by those who enable businesses work – the customers, we'd be on the right road. If we had vibrant local economies, we could better afford the expensive overhead of council services. Some of which actually are very useful and neccessary.

Unfortunately, councils are mostly decked out with commercially unsavvy people. Their socialist ideals are all about enforcing rules and regulations and business is something least on their minds. They are preoccupied with litigation and health and safety, to the detriment of all esle. There is also no doubt jealously on their part when they encounter anyone who wishes to better themselves whether it be in the form of a business, or a private concern. There wil always be a protracted delay and a "can't do" attitude from them.

What these councils need is a sea change in attidude and to become more customer orientated. They don't seem to understand that they exist to serve the community, not to weald power over it! They need to understand what it is like to have natural predators to their organisation and that their income can go down very significanlty in times of recession. None of this will happen in my life time!

The sad fact is that parts of the UK have far too many people reliant on the local public sector and this stifles development business even further.

A public sector should be proportionate – sufficient to serve the community in which it exists. If it gets too big, then we have an uneconomic situation and that community is in effect dead. What a waste of talent!

The North East was once a hive of manufacturing and successive governments have failed to rejuvenate industry there. Just today we have heard about the balance of imports/exports. Despite a weak pound, we still imported much more than we exported. I'd suggest we need higher import duties and encourage people to buy British. Fat chance!

The ghost towns in America exist due to different reasons. Towns there quickly spring up when a source of income appears, such as the discovery of minerals, oil, or any other commercial influence. When the income dries up, due to the vastness of the country an the dynamism of the people who run the place, people move on. It happens elsewhere in the world, but in the UK it's different, this is an overcrowded isle. We have a "peaked cap" culture where people are subject to all sorts of rules and regulations, penalties and high taxes, which the people of other countries would and do just just laugh at.

It would be more acceptable if there were decent services in return for these taxes. From what I can make out, a huge proportion of the money we pay goes to people in difficult circumstances, making it too cushy for them to be enconomically inactive. Instead, we welcome migrant workers from poorer coutries to do the jobs that those on these benefits should be doing. Benfit culture should not be a lifestyle choice, but that is what it has become.

I suppose all the lefties will tear my argument apart in their usual manner.

Isn't it just a VW?

When I went looking for a tent in the spring, my local Go Outdoors had the Banshee 200 on sale for £39.99 and for some reason I walked away. Still not sure why. Maybe it was the orange inner tent.

A proper crock of…….!!

If it is live, let's hope the plane crashes! 😈

Shocking video – The lunacy of Sharia Law

Don't worry, it's not graphic.

Do some digging about Islam, then tell me we should be tolerant towards it.

It's the stuff of the Dark Ages and THERE IS NO PLACE FOR IT IN A CIVILIZED SOCIETY!

strikes me that a lot or religous groups have no concept of how provocative they are being, they seam caught in there own hazy world and dont see the bigger picture of causing dispruption and hatred around the world,
there must be a law to stop this? as there is over here, but then again thats the usa for you!!

Like the Muslims who want to build mosque overlooking Ground Zero in New York!!

You'll find, if you dig deeper, that the Floridan Evangelists are responding to Muslim insensitivity.

Tolerance and the Koran are pretty incompatible.

Religion – yawn!

They have one of these at Duxford Imperial War Museum too.

Now let's sweep the violence and death caused by religion under the carpet.[/url]

I bet the 15000 rapes in the Democratic Republic of Congo has got something to do with religion, but you can bet, just like other reports of religious conflicts (e.g. Northern Ireland), the root cause will be swept under the carpet.

How could we possibly undermine the credibility of religion!

Apart from being ugly, shutting out light and devaluing properties nearby, that tree will be damaging foundations.

Why the useless council didn't step in years ago is beyond me.

The ASBO law has become a source of ridicule.

Leylandii bullies need taking down a peg, as much as their overgrown trees do!

but isn't religion an attempt to understand existence?

An "attempt"! Fail!!!

All my life I was under the distinct impression that most people didn't really believe religion/god, because the whole thing is patently flawed. Surely anyone with a brain can see that! I thought people just went along with it out of politeness, the need to conform with tradition and generally not wanting to rock the boat.

Later on in my life it came as a shock to me, realising that people do actually believe all of this is true!

My father was a doctor and his father was a rector. My dad was a clever guy, he finished secondary school by 14 and was qualified as a doctor by 21. He lived in a pretty religious environment growing up. He used to send me and my sisters to Sunday school, so the indoctrination effort continued. It was wasted on me though.

My father once told me he believed in the Bible, except the virgin birth. He told me this belief was because of his medical knowledge. Well how many women do you know who had a baby without having sex, or artificial insemination? Science and medicine has proved that a single human being alone cannot reproduce – FACT! So how then did Mary manage to "press one out" without Joseph giving her his "divine seed"? Utter nonsense!

Now, you either believe the entire contents of the Bible, or you don't. You can't pick the bits you like and discard the rest. So I conclude that my father misunderstood the whole point of the exercise – faith. Or was he just going along with the whole charade?

Religion has been, is and will always be a cause of conflict, death and destruction!

Only today, some mad Christian evangelists based in Florida are threatening to burn a pile of copies of the Quran/Koran on 9/11. The Iranian Muslim Clerics are saying this would bring about an uncontrolled response from Muslims around the world.

In the US, there is a great controversy about the building of a mosque overlooking ground zero and many Americans are questioning whether their president is infact a muslim. His speech in Cairo was certainly an eye opener.

I'm sure this bunch of evangelicals nuts in Florida have been motivated to make this statement because of the planned Mosque at Ground Zero. The building of a Mosque in this place is seen as an affront to Christian America by the Muslims who are gloating over their victory on 9/11. An insult to all who perished in the twin tower disaster, the survivors and the relatives.

Tensions are running high! People are exasperated as to why planning permission was granted and why the Muslim leaders would want to provoke people by siting their mosque so insensitively.

The leaders of the western world are being browbeaten into accepting the gradual Islamification of their countries and the quest for political correctness, for tolerance is allowing in an wholly intolerant religion. Check out Sharia Law and some of the stuff that goes on in one of the supposed civilized Muslim countries, like Saudi Arabia. E.G, public stoning to death of rape victims, the persecution of homosexuals and other the medieval practices od Sharia Law. Jews aren't too popular with Muslims either and the Koran encourages violence towards the people it doesn't like! Tolerance???? My arse!!! To think civilised countries are embracing and ecnouraging the spread of this vile poison!

Other conflicts include Northern Ireland, The Baltic war, a whole raft of wars in the Middle East. How about the crusades? THe list is endless, yet still we passionately subscribe to divisive claptrap, citing all that is good about a particupar faith. Nonsense!

I think the way forward for a peaceful society, if you want to be religious, is keep religion entirely to youself! No identifying features either. It should be an entirely private thing.

I personally like free thinking and to question the world around me. I make sense of "existence" by examining real things, real facts and how man has learned from experimentation. The methodology of science is rational and enables the human race to further it's knowledge of the world. Referring to a selection of dusty old story books does NOTHING for us. Morality CAN exist without religion!

Perhaps my life is lacking something because I have no sense of spirituality. I'm more about reality than ideals and unproven dark age dogma.

Religion, Yawn!

Now that is just ridiculous! 😆