I read them when they came out as my best friend was/is a massively into comics. I’ll give them a another go before I watch the TV series.

A long time ago (20 years ago) Andy Parsons was a good stand up I used go see him in at the comedy store and at Edinburgh. Mock the week has been past it’s best for a long long time it’s getting stale even well Frankie Boyle was still on it.

HIGNFY is still good when there’s a big story in the news but I’m not sure how long it can survive Mad Nads

@thenorthwind very good and there are no pound shops or coffee shops on it either

@thenorthwind that sounds like an exciting high street where is it?

I had a road bike crash about 20 years over the bars and the impact was on the side of my knee. A bit of gravel rash but I cleaned it up and got on with it. About ten days later my leg started to swell went to A&E was given antibiotics by a nurse never saw a doctor.

The next day my now wife came home to find me out of it on the couch with a leg like an elephant. I was in hospital on IV antibiotics for a fortnight until eventually they had to cut all the necrotic tissue away and then spent months packing the wound out for it to heal.

Keep an eye on it and if starts to detoriate I’d get back to the doctors

The two man drop stitch is £250 in France and the three man £320. I bought the 2 man at Whit.

Watched it last night. It’s stupid and brainless, Chris Evans hams it up Ryan Gosling does Ryan Gosling. The Mrs stayed awake all the way through which she has failed to do through anything for the past 6 months despite having Covid at the moment. It a massive budget B movie.

@ads678 I did mine after a shoulder op I couldn’t run so I starting walking up to 50 miles a week for a few weeks and it knackered them. Try all the stretching stuff which you’ll know but it just didn’t work for me even with a really good physio. I the found out my local physio did shockwave therapy where they hit the tendon 1000,s of times over a few minutes and it damages the tendon but brings blood flow to it. After 6 months getting nowhere it was fixed after 1 month and 4 sessions.

I know what you mean about flip flops no more Gazelles or Converse for me. All my casual trainers are now restricted for use when I don’t have to walk anywhere.

I has really bad Achilles last year and it completely stopped my running for six months but it did stop me biking at all.

@thegeneralist Here is the link to page in French Decathlon page

https://www.decathlon.fr/browse/c0-tous-les-sports/c1-canoe-kayak/c2-canoe-kayak-de-randonnee/_/N-1mvlbld

The drop stitch kayaks are much easier to dry than a standard inflatable kayaks. They are also much cheaper in France than the UK. 300E vs £400 for the two man and 380E vs £500 for the three. I’m going see if I can convince the missus to buy the three man when we are on next on hols so we have a 2 and 3 and then we could all kayak together

I bought the decathlon X100 Kayak a few months ago mainly for use on hols. Me and my youngest took it along the Macclesfield Canal a few weeks ago and it was great. I must have been along the canal 100’s of times before but the perspective was completely different on the canal. This is just by AstraZeneca’s site in Macclesfield but it could be anywhere.

i like that it had the portability of a SUP but it’s more practical and I’m much less likely to fall in and catch some dodgy disease.

Why does Truss keep banging on about her terrible education. I grew up in Leeds at the same time as her (I’m a couple of years older) and as far as I was aware her school was pretty good, much betterer than mine and some of the others in the area. I suppose when everyone around you at work went to Eton, Harrow and Winchester any normal education will seem crap in comparison

I’ve just messaged one of my mates from Uni who was at the school the same time as her to see what he feels about her slagging off the school. He hasn’t answered yet as he’s now the CFO of some massive company in NZ. He grew up with a father dying of MS and he’s done alright plus she got into Oxford from there it couldn’t have been that bad. Now if she gone to Parklands she’d have a point.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/liz-truss-roundhay-school-leeds-b2128647.html

Get a proper swimming or tri wet suit.

I’d piled a load a weight due a succession of injuries and needed a new wetsuit. I tried the alpkit Silvertip which is lined and designed to swim cold water but I couldn’t get in the XL. They had some damaged ones very cheap last in the Keswick shop last in time I was there. I did notice wiggle had a lined suit on offer last week when i was looking at mine but decided not to go for it and just got a normal wetsuit. Here’s a link to the termal one good price.

https://www.wiggle.co.uk/dhb-hydron-thermal-wetsuit

I’ve swam down to 5c in a standard wetsuit and it’s fine once you get going the worse part is your face going numb and no wetsuit is going to help with that.

I figured I’d use this big suit in the summer and maybe stick a neoprene vest underneath it winter once I’ve lost weight. Im going to be swimming in warm water all summer so a lined suit would be overkill.

I really don’t care but on a recent day long ride from Coniston and around Loughrigg, we saw about 20 riders on e-bikes and only 2 other riders on a non e-bikes. I suppose if you have a nice new e bike then it’s probably where you would take it to ride.

Tore it a year ago and the repair in October and initially was very diligent with the physio but when I still couldn’t run at Easter I gave up on the physio.

I have had no problem cycling or hiking I was hiking 16 miles in the snow by February and I was mountain biking at Christmas. Since then I have had some pretty big days on the bike on the road, MTB and Gravel and it’s been fine. I’m planning to try running again soon.

I’m not convinced that an out front mount is best got an expensive bike computer.

I had my new 530 on one, went OTB and smashed it to bits. The Garmin crash replacement service was great but it’s staying on my stem from now.

@Binners I have to apologise I have a soft spot for Chiles it must be watching working lunch when was at Uni.

Initially I thought that Nihal was a bit of a token appointment I was probably biased from watching an interview he did with Soulwax when he was just starting out and he was terrible. He is really good and the diversity of guests he gets in and depth to which he interviews is brilliant. The Johnny Lyndon one had me in tears.

I wouldn’t send the aero press back I have two and they are great they don’t work for me at the moment as I go through tonnes of coffee at home and it’s a faff to make large volumes with, for one person it’s perfect.

Making espresso at home can be become an expensive business. I’ve never gone down that road. I have the default Delongi Magnifica which after been hammered up until lockdown barely gets switched on now. It doesn’t make proper espresso for that you need something like a gagia classic and a grinder that can produce uniform and fine enough grinds that can add up. There will be people on this forum with set ups costing thousands.

Im off with Covid at the moment and was watching some old James Hoffman videos last night. 10 minutes later I’m looking at old espresso machines on eBay must resist. I used to work on HPLC machine in the lab when I was younger and coffee machine are much less complicated so I’m sure i could repair or upgrade one if has the time.

We go through a ridiculous amount of coffee so hand grinding wouldn’t work, I have a Wilfa Svart (black one) which is good for everything except expresso. I drink decaf and during the week we use 1kg bags from Costco whatever is on offer and at the weekend I use the beans I have on subcription from Decadent Decaf on subscription.

I use a V60 which I prefer it to Aeropress with the posh coffee, for the cheap coffee I just use a Melita machine with a vacuum pot but we do make about 4 litres a day.

One thing worth knowing in France and I don’t know about the rest of Europe you have to rescued by the motorways recovery, so if you can get off the motorway. I learned this the hard way when the wife let the van run out of diesel (despite forgoing three opportunities to fill it up). It was a nightmare with three kids, the local petrol stations were shut and the phone on the motorway barely worked. We were eventually rescued and Green Flag would have paid for the recovery (250 euros) if I’d remembered to claim.

I feel terrible for Mo and a cried reading his story but.. It doesn’t excuse that he chose to maintain a very close relationship with a Salazar an appalling individual, Mo was in his inner circle. Salazar sexually and mentally abused young women and girls and pressured athletes to take drugs. The truth is that distance running is a house of cards when it comes to PEDs and it just hasn’t had it’s Lance Armstrong moment yet, IAAF and IOC will do everything to stop it from happening.

Defending Mo Farah wrt to Salazar is like my US colleagues in the mid 00 defending Lance was it so obvious he was cheating. I’m afraid he tarnished his own name and reputation.

What a surprise

Bernie’s tax evasion

I’ve just looked at the Hautcam stage and they’ve included the Col des Spandelles for the first time on the tour. That’s will be interesting, on the side they are climbing it’s very steep and very narrow. It’s like one of those singletrack road descents in the dales except it goes on for 3000ft. I noticed last summer the roads around there were closed, they will have been resurfacing it as there was a section you had to get off and push near the bottom. Most people skip it and head straight up the solour to the aubisque and I generally never see a soul on it except forest workers.

Link

@tjagain it doesn’t matter what the majority think its what those in the red wall seats think. If labour said they would reverse Brexit they wouldn’t win those seats back. There wasn’t a huge swing to labour in the Wakefield by election despite Partygate and the last Tory MP being a peado. They should have smashed that seat.

It’s choice between a labour or lib/lab government and make the best of Brexit or Tories remaining in and making a hash of Brexit I know what I’d choose.

This wife booked the flights for our big family holiday to Vegas Easter 2020 with this transfer in the middle, for 5 of us with hold luggage without me realising. You couldn’t skip the Manchester to Heathrow bit and check in at Gatwick as it as in the conditions of travel. I was massively stressed about it, fortunately the world went to shit so the holiday never happened.

I gave up on Sandisk from Amazon for my GoPro as they never worked. Switch to a Lexar recommended by Go pro and now problems. I second going to Argos much less chance of getting scammed.

I used the home freeze kit on my 10 year old a few times but it didn’t work that well. However the verruca dits did the trick really well.

Freeranger now has new colours including black.

I walked along the canal from Regent’s Park to Camden them on to Hamstead Heath and Highgate cemetery. I didn’t go in but I saw Marx’s tomb from the park next door. Hamsted lido looked really quiet and would have been good if I’d had swimming stuff.

I’m now waiting at Brixton Academy for LCD soundststem.

Tomorrow I’ll walk along the River but away from the city either towards Richmond or Greenwich. I do fancy getting the oat back

Thanks for the suggestions

We were on holiday in the Auverene where you don’t get that many Brits. I was taking my young kids out for a ride and drove to a remote tiny village where a little green route started. I parked up but I wasn’t happy with the space so I drove 1km out of the village and pulled into one of those spaces where they have the shared bins in France. There was only three houses there. I started unloading the bikes and getting the kids ready, when i hear someone call out my name. It was the one of my friends who’s a parent of one of the kids in my sons football team and she’d recognised my voice which is quiet distinctive from their chalet garden. We had no idea we’d both gone to the same area which they’d picked at random in addition they were staying in the absolute middle of nowhere and we would have never seen them if I’d not moved the car.

I holiday there all the time. The ride from Col de Couraduque to Col de Soleur is great you could then also go on to the Aubisque on the road. My favourite road ride in the world is from Argeles Col de Spandells Col de Solour, Col D’Aubisque then back via Col de Bordes takes me more than a few hours.

I’m planning to do the gravel ride up Tourmalet next year it looks great. There are tracks along the top of Hautcam that are gravelable also there are loads of way-marked mountain bike routes in the area and the blues and parts of the reds can be done on a gravel bike. I’ll see if I can find the pdf I got it somewhere.

The figure the government are banding around is that a 15% pay ride would on average equate to a £7000 pay rise. This means on average they are earning less than £50k. My daughter quite fancied studying law but I think I’m going to suggest she trains as a train driver instead.

I use the decathlon one on my road bike as it’s so easy to swap between bikes. I think you’d get what you list in it.

Do that ferry to Santander and Bilbao quite often. The last two times we got the 36 hour ferry and we are doing it again in summer. it works out better as you arrive really early in the morning and have all day to get across Spain. I’ve not driven to the south but have gone to Tarragona a few times and the motorways were empty. Same going to Ainsa this year

We did Caen to Morzine in Feb and that took about 10 hours with the traffic after the ferry at that was hard driving in the queues I suspect 10 hours on Spanish Motorways would be a lot easier.

I have an i10 and it’s absolutely perfect for its main job of chauffeuring kids between activities in town. I love it, its nominally my car but since fuel prices went mental the 4×4 had been parked up and the missus has nicked it.

We take mountain bikes on holiday but don’t go on mountain biking holidays. This summer holiday is a week in Barbazan 10 miles north of Luchon looks like it has a load of way-marked trails from the door. Followed by a week in the Ariege north of Foix and then a week in Murol in the Massif Central. A mixture of road, gravel, and MTBing plus plenty of SUPing and Kayaking. Its first time not camping as there is too much gear to lug around.

We had two 15 months apart and 3rd three years later so was in for thousands a month for years. It got us used to not having as much disposable income and when they came out we saved the money rather than blowing it on coke, hookers, Santa Cruzes and Audis. It was the best thing we ever did.

Replace gymnastics with women’s cycling its the same, in my view though they sport England deny it, this is simply a product of Olympic funding been driven by medal success. This leads to the sports trying to compete for the UK in a global peeing up the wall contest and these kids are just fodder.

If it was down to me I’d pull the lottery funding for athletes and put it all into grassroots sport and to improve the health of the nation rather than fund people’s hobbies. We as country should be comfortable that been nowhere in the Olympic medal table doesn’t matter, if getting up it results in the abuse of children.

I have that exact rack and haven’t got on with it I’m not sure I’d want to clamp those arm to a carbon seat stay. However had a rack like the toppeak one then when in place didn’t move a mm for years, not QR though