Good posy inkster, I’m sure someone will be along shortly to shoot you down with a well reasoned argument.
But

I can imagine what you’d would have tattooed on your forehead as a result of what’s behind said forehead.

Reminds me of someone I was in school with. Big Elvis fan so he tattooed Elvis on his forehead. Only proplem was he did it himself looking in a mirror 🙄🙄.
Ended well though, he got it removed with a grant from the Prince of Wales trust 👍

Maybe their just unaware of the VAT rules on this, and were just trying to provide a good service by fitting it for you ? But I agree it does smell more than a bit fishy.

Just thought I’d share my 60th birthday present to myself. I looked at a fair few with the Tudor Pelagos being the front runner for a while, but it just looked a bit big on my 17.5cm wrist. And as I already have a 42mm dive watch I thought something a bit smaller. I’d have liked to try on Black Bay 58 but couldn’t find one in stock anywhere. Then I saw a Rado Captain Cook, again the 42mm seemed just a bit big but I managed to find a ltd edition 37mm and that’s what I got 😁

Here’s an odd thing. Since I’ve become full-time vegetarian, I’ve spontaneously lost about 8lb in weight.

Not odd your just eating fewer calories. Once you reach a weight your happy with look to increase those.

It was rather vague, it is worth at times writing what you mean clearly and accurately.

I thought it was pretty clear, “societys use xyz” never means every one in a society does, only that its prevalent. I’d say 20% uptake of anything would make it prevalent.
Regarding statistics, when it comes to alchol and drug use people lie. Just with alchol we somehow manage to buy twice as much as we claim to drink 😁. Now ask that question about drug use 🤔

and there is a far greater risk of it doing more harm.

I probably agree, especially how the law might be applied in more religiously conservative areas of the country. I was just putting out an alternative take on things.
Trying to avoid that click bait knee jerk reaction.

But in reality most of us aren’t affect by most things that happen outside our immediate family and community. Does that mean I can’t have an opinion on anything not covered in the Llandaff North quarterly Gazzette ?
News from the wider world is “interesting” whether it affects us or not.

As ever though the devil is in the detail. If the law allows a 19 year old man who is in jail for having sex with his 17 year old girlfriend, ( age of consent is 18 in Turkey)to get out early if they conseually marry there’s a argument in favour of it. But if it allowed a rapist to get out of jail and presumably continue to rape his victim then it would be an abomination.
And I get tomd’s point clickbait stories don’t give any proper perspective, unless you use them as a basis for more in depth investigation, their only purpose is to generate revenue and inflame emotions

The article uses the word “forced”. But is that the case ? I don’t think you can legally be forced into marriage in Turkey. But I don’t doubt that in some areas there could be a lot of pressure placed on a woman to accept a marriage they don’t want.
My take is that it’s a type of “Romeo and Juliet” law.

Getting a bit of weed and coke and sharing around few mates is dealing? Nuts, that’s just how it works

Maybe in your world. Not mine.

But it is how it works, and hopefully it hasn’t gone past that stage. There’s always one person in a group who knows someone and the others “ask” him or her to get something for them. In fact lads like the Op’s son are often nagged by their friends and class mates to buy stuff for them. There’s no pushing drugs onto people, it just so happens he’s the one with the contact. Things can go a lot further but normally it doesn’t.
But yes in the eyes of the law he is a dealing and there’s no getting away from that.

After weeks of psychological torture you are excused an over-reaction.

Not an over-reaction at all. Can’t believe how well your trying to cope with all this, I wouldn’t have done half as well. Hope it works out for your son but it does feel like the whole situation has still has got some way to run 🙁

I have a fairly simple rule – any messing about at the end of the meal around who pays what & I’ll never eat out with them again. Life is too short for that sort of nonsense.

I have the same rule 👍. This is ok though.

Ask at the start to run your own tab.

Especially if You’ve got one if these, in fact then it becomes compulsory.

“Sirloin steak, extra fries, onion rings, peppercorn sauce, side of garlic bread and a Pellegrino”

If someone dies on the pavement then the only way they’ll end up in the DfT data is if they’ve died as a direct result of being hit by a vehicle of some sort, 

Your probably right, but I doubt any statistics relate to pedestrians being killed on the “pavement”. Most would be pedestrians stepping into the road. That’ll be children, old people and those incapacitated by drink or drugs. Most of those things don’t apply to cyclists in general.
When I look at statistics I try and see how they relate to myself. After 55yrs if cycling I’m still alive and have never been hit by a vehicle, but I’ve had loads of near misses, and on several occasions it’s been my own actions that have avoided a collision.

Again it’s how statistics are interpreted. Cyclist are generally younger and healthy so are not in a group likely to die walking on the pavement, but they do die on the roads. Pedestrian accident statistics include everyone.
To give you an example. I once went through the screening process to see if I was suitable to donate a kidney. The statistics say live kidney donors have a longer life expectancy than average. But to donate a kidney you have to be fit and healthy, a great deal of those who make up the “average” aren’t.
For me a fit and healthy person per hour spent, it’s going to be walking, driving then cycling in that order of safety.

Love the hero with the phone 🙄

Stupid people are everywhere.

http://harmful.cat-v.org/people/basic-laws-of-human-stupidity/

Bearing in mind mist cyclists who ride on the road tend to be younger fitter people, general safety statistics are misleading.

You’ve got about as much chance of dying on the road as choking to death.

Who choke to death ? Old people and young children mostly, not the cyling demographic.

Oh FFS – no much more than when we walk along a pavement.

Sure walking on the pavement has its hazards, but again thats, old people, young children, ill people, drunks ect, ect. Younger fit sober people don’t generally hurt themselves walking on the pavement.

If you can get 6 lbs of your and it’s still fit for purpose it will feel pretty different, 30/24 lbs is a lot. I’ve recently lost more than 6 lbs of my body and feel more or less the same. It’s only when I look at Strava segment times that I notice the difference.

But if it dropped from £205 to £102 it wouldn’t have been just one bid there must have been at least two shill bidders. Otherwise the genuine £102 bid would have been topped by just £103.

I found this an interesting read. Certainly a different opinion.

so, you’re saying the OP has got to go and replace all his lights with different beam pattern ones

Is that such a bad idea for riding on the road ? Cars/motorbikes have to be able to dip their lights, so why not bicycles if their lights are as bright.
I’ve got an Exposure Strada, the remote switch lets my swap between high and low beams. As soon as I see oncoming traffic going straight down into low gets an instant dipped beam from other vehicles. Had zero problems since I got it.

. Having raced motorbikes, you were always told to buy the best helmet you could as it’d be the thing that saves you…….and I have cracked one in the garage to remind me how good they are.

Not exactly relevant to my 3 mile ride at 10mph (I used to run at that pace) on a tarmac path through parks to Cardiff’s city centre.

Democracy is not a one time event…

Unless it was a leave win in another Scottish independence referendum 😉

But if you were the seller you’d just message back “no worries it’s the invisiwrap” who wouldn’t?

I’ve been told to ejaculate at least 20 times in the next 12wks before returning a sample.

I bet that’s what you told your wife…

I went home with some literature on how to produce as sample 🙄🙄.
There was a suggestion your partner could join in the fun. Needles to say Mrs taxi wasn’t impressed 🙁

 but mostly you’re just buying a pretty “thing”. 

Agree 100%, and as I like owning prettt things vinyl is what I prefer to buy. But to just listen to music thats a mixture of everything except cassette. I still have a nice Yamaha cassette deck but it’s in the attic. Binned the last worn out cassettes I had a couple of years ago.

I had crest mk1 wheels many moons ago in 26 flavour. They are more than up to the job of light weight xc duty,

Ditto.I’m 80kg+ and had the same using Dt240’s. The went from bike to bike, and I think I trashed 2 rims in about 6-7yrs. Sold them with the last 26″ bike I had a sub 21lbs Scott Scale. I don’t usually regret selling bikes but I do that one 🙁

It was the lack of stuff like early SV650’s that surprised me more. 

There’s 50 pre 2007 SV650’s on ebay at the moment. That’s not reall a “lack”

There a Thursday shop ride with the Meta bike cafe in Altea

http://www.ciclocostablanca.com/en/meta-bike-cafe/

Also the Union ciclista Benidorm have a club ride Sundays. The bike cafe could give you info on that.
This is a ride I’ve done from their route book.

This is more or less my favourite ride from Benidorm. But rather than come down the Cv70 I drop into Guadalest then the cv755 to Callosa, Polop and La nucia, it works pretty well either way round.

https://www.bikemap.net/en/r/3347560/

As a black woman she’s obviously a target for racists. But swastikas and monkey pictures represent a tiny proportion of the overall criticism she gets. Simply because the people who would send them are a tiny minority of the population. Mostly she’s criticised for her competence and the policies she supports. She’d be criticised for those regardless of race or gender. Perhaps she gets so much stick because she actually is the most incompetent senior politician in office at the moment.

I can’t see why this isn’t murder tbh.

If someone was actively involved in the planning of an operation that would cost lives pre-emptive self defence ia justifiable. If someone threatens you with a gun in the street you don’t have to wait to be shot before defending yourself. Whether killing Solemani makes the world safer is the debatable question.

 unfortunately Taxi53 has never done enough big road rides to know this .. sadly he is a bow legged mtber who occasionally pretends to be a roadie.

Says the man awaiting delivery of a new MTB 😉

You not reading properly Taxi51 – he looking for routes without too much traffic.

“Classic routes” you can plot loads of rides using mostly lanes but nothing that you’d call a “classic”.
At some point you need to mix with traffic, either that or get of road using trails and sustrans routes.

Unless you live a distance from a petrol station brimming your tank wastes money. The extra weight your hauling around will harm fuel economy. Not much maybe but over a year it’ll add up, and why burn more fuel than you have to anyway.

Proper climbing day would be. Cardiff to Ponty, up the Graig over to llantrisant, head for Gilfach Goch drop down into Blackmill and head for Nanty-moel and up over the Bwlch, down into Treorchy, turn left and up over the Rhigos. Head for Aberdare and take the A4233 to Maerdy and on to Porth, Ponty and back home.

 i might stray off road a bit on my routes and this might be able to handle a bit of dirt track stuff?

If it’s just an occasional dirt track any road bike with 28mm ish tyres will cope just fine. I wouldn’t comprise the road experience over a bit of gravel.
I’m fancying a gravel bike at the moment, but it’ll be an alternative to my mtb on some rides rather than a compromise road bike.

Not sure what difference UK designed makes. But this is pretty nice.
https://www.tweekscycles.com/ritchey-ultra-frameset-2003857/?sku=RCH97452817007&istCompanyId=56f52ebf-49f3-492a-9cbb-cb6ab0fc1bf0&istFeedId=c2306de0-9ac7-40f5-b9fe-c99bd95845f7&istItemId=wrppqtwtm&istBid=t&awc=6411_1577824436_0c46ea0a703ca34bc5e827c5cb0ee967&utm_source=Affiliate_Window&utm_medium=Direct+Linking&utm_campaign=323889

Not used a bottle for over 20yrs offroad, dont miss putting a cowpat smeared bit of plastic in my mouth one little bit 🤢. I find a camelbak perfect for a drink and carrying all my bits and pieces, everything is all there in one place. Also adds a bit of crash protection, saved me a sore back on more than one occasion.

I can’t find the relevant law. I’ll post a link when I do

I don’t think there is a specific law but it could be covered under.

2. Careless cycling

Careless cycling is an offence committed by anyone cycling on a road without due care and attention or without reasonable consideration of others. 

The maximum penalty for careless cycling is £1,000. 

Careless cycling is an offence under section 29 of the Road Traffic Act 1988(link is external). 

The “reasonable consideration” is what might cause trouble, but in practice I’m sure it would need to be pretty extreme.