Agree with Woody, it sounds like an Ichnuemon wasp got to the caterpillar.

It is the insect equivalent of the beastie from Alien – Nuke it from orbit, its the only safe way.

Jeff Bridges as The Dude in Big Lebowski

Tom Cruise as any sawn off a**hole you care to name

I though Ben Kingsley was a brilliant Don Logan in Sexy Beast – about as far from Gandhi as its possible to get, was he born for either role or is he just a superb actor?

I changed my name to B357 AFG – much simpler.

Wouldn't bother with one, I could always think of a better use for the money. Round this part of Herts the original DVLA issue numbers stand out more than the vanity plates anyway.

Though there is a N London tree work firm that has number plates that spell OAK, ASH etc. If you don't mind a three digit number the plates cost in the low hundreds, which isn't a lot on top of the cost of a new truck, paint job and signwriting, plus it makes them that bit more noticeable. I can see the point of that.

First proper MTB in 1990. Had several over the years, but still ride the first really decent one, a 1992 Raleigh Dynatech, although the frame is about the only original bit left. Most expensive was a 1995 Gary Fisher ProCaliber I got for £1,500, RRP was about £3,5000. Beautiful fast machine but deeply flawed.

If bombing round the local woods on a 3 speed Elswick Hopper with the chunkiest tyres I could get and a set of bars from a trials motor bike counts then I started in 1968.

What diameter is it? If you don't like using a chainsaw a 30 or 36" bowsaw is remarkably effective, though you do need a good blade and a saw horse. Also quieter, environmentally sounder and very good for arm and shoulder muscles.

S3 LWB Land rover with the 2.6l 6 cyl motor. Drove two in different jobs, both nice and smooth but struggled to reach 50. On the plus side one managed to keep going on 3 pots after the cam shaft snapped and punched a hole in the side of the block. Performance was so bad we didn't notice until the oil light came on.

Early 110 with the 2.5l naturally asthmatic diesel was a close second.

Got back down the M1 from the Midlands to Watford early yesterday evening and it seemed to be running OK, although the snow was fairly thick, but just spoke to someone else who took 6 hours to get from West Watford to High Wycombe last night.

One version doing the rounds is that the drivers are on strike, so the trains were being driven by managers with limited experience and there were no backup drivers to drive relief / rescue trains. Would explain why the official story just doesn't add up.

Don't leave them up there too long

2 – 3 inches in Herts, powdery but the temperature is rising so it will go slushy. Stopped falling for the moment but the wind is strong

We can't "save the planet", its a f***ing great piece of rock that will last billions more years before the dying sun expands and swallows it. However we are making a very nasty mess of the surface, the next big extinction is on the way and it's us, within a few millennia there will be no sign we ever existed. In the scheme of things the human era is a tiny fraction of the life of a tiny short lived world.

Get used to it and have a happy christmas

Freecom tough drive – powered from the usb and the cable is a short integral flexible thing that folds away. And it lights up blue when its working.

Heard a while ago in a supermarket after an old biddy had barged past a mother and small kid.

"Mummy, why is that old lady so rude and why does she smell of wee?"

s**t! my bike's older than some people on here, it'll be old enough to vote next year. Well the frame, cranks, bars, ends and saddle are, rest of it has been replaced or upgraded at least once.

Out the front door, almost immediately on bridleways or the sort of footpath everyone rides on. Usually do a 20 mile ish loop north east, round London Colney, Colney Heath, North Mimms. Other variants on the same theme are a north westerly loop, better in dry weather, or a complete orbit sound the top of St Albans.

Typical route crosses the M25 up to four times but nearly all of it is off tarmac and there are technical bits if you look for them. Like Karinofnine said there's more in Herts than you might think.

Will miss Malcolm – best quote of the show:

"Not f**ing Chris Hoy, he's a f***ing cyclist, everyone hates f***ing cyclists. Even f***ing cyclists hate f***ing cyclists."

Might be a bit out on the f word count there but you get the picture.

Did it over Salisbury plain one summer a few years back, magical. Highlights were chasing a big wobbly arsed badger anda bat keeping up at about head height along one bit

Might just be the place the kids wait for the school bus.

53 – self employed treeman.

+1 for the Old Cheshire Cheese in Fleet Street. Old Journos' pub, much quieter now they've all decamped to Wapping but still loads of character. Still has coal fires in winter.

Also The Spaniards, Spaniards Road, Hampstead, good after a walk on the Heath. Have a soft spot because I met Swamp Girl there for the first time. The Flask in Flask Walk, Hampstead isn't bad either.

They look very nice, but £300???

£30 pair of leather rigger boots from Mole Valley Farmers works for me. Keep my feet warm all day, don't get clammy like rubber wellies and a good coat of Nikwax / dubbin / goose fat keep them waterproof.

Great band. Saw them at the Astoria a couple of years back and Kentish Town a couple of weeks ago.

headfirst – saw an interview with Frankie Boyle recently – he was a teacher and used to drop silent ones as he walked past the table with the badly behaved kids on and watch them all blame each other.

I work on my own in the great outdoors most of the time so usually no problems letting rip. On a hill above the S coast today though, so couldn't compete with mother nature, at least not for force.

You could try asking on here

http://www.tree-care.info/uktc

Oops how did that happen?

You could try asking on here

http://www.tree-care.info/uktc

I've got a Lowe triple point and its going down the charity shop. Tears way too easily, had to get it patched twice and lets rain in like seive despite being treated twice as per manufacturers spec. Its back to the Barbour Bushman, heavy duty waxed cotton with a lining for surveys now, heavy but warm and very dry inside. Will probably see me out.

Canondale carbon jacket with wicking layer underneath works a treat on the bike.

Buffalo jacket [pertex with pile lining] was good out on the hill but a bit fragile and didn't really keep water out just kept me warm.

Just paid £30 for an RN issue breathable jacket, have to see how that performs

Was at a conference, speaker stopped mid flow at 11 and we all stood for 2 minutes, not a peep.

But Northwind's grandad had it right, those people died so it wouldn't be compulsory.

Went to the same school as Bill Bailey – quite a few years earlier. Other famous old boy was Thomas De Quincey – author of "Confessions of an opium eater".

Illegitimate descendant of Parson Russell who bred the first Jack Russell terriers.

Try holding the end of the handle and dropping the head end onto hard ground a few times. Bit counter intuitive but it drives the head onto the taper harder.

Or leave the head end in water for a few hours – it makes the wood swell.

Yep, stupid – but tasty.

Though the way they are reared and managed isn't very clever either.

Pheasants don't fly much naturally, but its not the done thing to shoot one that walks out of the woods. Birds that fly get shot, those that walk survive. Even though most woods get restocked each year the breeding pool must be birds with a tendency to walk rather than fly.

So the evolution of the pheasant is being accelerated towards a bird that walks, driven by people who want them to fly. Who's the stupid party in that arrangement?

I ran a converted V8 range rover, put about 60,000 miles on it with no gas related problems, though it is important to run it on petrol now and again or at least keep some in the tank. More and more filling stations are doing LPG so finding it shouldn't be a big problem.

They can take time to fill and you will never get the tank up to its nominal capacity though.

tickety f***ity boo

I remember seeing some of the story books my dad and his brothers had in the 1920s – extremely non PC by current standards, although the tone was more patronising than out and out white supremacist bigotry.

Still have one granddad's WW1 billy can and a German bayonet he liberated and use the other granddad's oil can. Used to go fishing in my dad's old Indian army bush hat.

Power shifts cars out of the showroom

Torque shifts them along the road

At least that's the way it worked with the 350 cubic inch Chevy powered thing I used to own. Not that fast but had a torque curve like Table mountain, didn't recognise hills.

JFK assassination, I was 7 at the time.

I was at school, but have been known to tell conspiracy theorists that I was on a grassy knoll in Dallas.

If its a steel frame Argos bikes in Bristol will braze one on and reinforce the rear triangle. I had an old frame done a while back and they did a great job, works perfectly and looks like it was made that way. Had to be without the frame for a while though, cost was about £70.00 IIRC.

Think this movie is the same guys – well worth a few minutes, especially if you're having a bad day at work

Not a bad idea, seems wrong not to use an available resource, better than dumping them in land fill. Seems counter productive to freeze them then burn them though. Animal feed might be "greener" seeing as they have already converted all that grass into protein.

Still running them on my MTB. They are on a cartridge BB replaced last year, cranks are original 1992 ones that came with the bike, and still OK so replacing the BB made more sense than getting into a whole drive line upgrade scenario. Not so easy to get five arm 7 speed chain rings now but got some nice Middleburn ones from CRC.

The bike is old but I like it, rather than pull it to bits one day I'll semi retire it and get a complete new one.

Hayley Bateup AKA Australia's fittest woman