It’s not really, existing stock CAN be upgraded as proven in German experiments. Really though we should be building to the Passivhaus standard if we want to seriously reduce our energy consumption as a nation.

If the UK wants to seriously reduce energy consumption it needs to retrofit existing buildings. Some 90% of current buildings will still be standing in 50 years time, so new Passivhaus would make a tiny impact on that. Passive is part of the answer, but retrofit is the big hitter in buildings. Decarbonizing transport is currently a bigger issue (before VW as well).

And that’s before they go to war. The carbon footprint of a deployed modern army is typically enormous. One report suggested the US military, with its tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles, used 190.8m litres of oil every month during the invasion of Iraq. An estimated two thirds of this fuel is used delivering more fuel to the vehicles at the battlefront.

Yup. Some environmental horrors committed in the name of freedom. I spent nearly 4 years helping the military reduce it’s dependency on fossil fuels. Fascinating work, occasionally frustrating, occasionally groundbreaking.

Get an OS map and find the trails / ROW / RUPPs etc. If you can’t find solace in riding a bike around the wonder that is the highways and byways of England then yes, give up and eat cake.
I moved away from trails. I explored and found some local riding and got out more on a road bike. It’s ALL about exploring out from where you live on whatever bike works best.

My brother has been a tree surgeon for 20 years. He’s one of the strongest and fittest blokes I know and he doesn’t have a beard or a tartan shirt.
Mind you, the creeping arthritis and other problems from working outdoors for 20 years doing that sort of manly stuff are no fun.
I am really proud of my kid brother, especially when he is as good as he is at what he does (if anyone on Tyneside needs a tree surgeon, let me know).

what kind of Americans are sufficiently into guns to want to keep the status quo?

Don’t think of it as a social class but rather more a political leaning. Basically, people who are commies support gun control.

To a lot of people, it really is that simple. They don’t seek to properly understand the issues, and just see ‘gun control’ as a direct attack on their ‘freedom’. This is despite the US being utterly hide-bound with red tape, petty bureaucracy and some of the worst small-minded localism I’ve ever experienced.
I live in Virginia, where there is no documentation of gun transactions, gun fairs are common and the open carry of guns is not illegal (so I could carry a handcannon in a holster on show and that’s OK). Yet I have to buy spirits from a state-owned and run store that decides what alcohol is available in the state for me to buy. In the US, homeowners associations are common (I live in an area with one). If you could imagine a housing estate with rules for house colour, garden standards, what you can / can’t park in your drive etc and everyone pays in for common landscaping, facilities etc. So, a voluntary set of additional rules that you pay to have imposed upon you. There are pros and cons, but it’s another set of rules. You also need to pass a driving test and carry a license and have insurance etc to drive a car.

Yet having ANY level of control over guns that isn’t in place now is a threat to freedom?

Blinkered nonsense, but it’s how people live.

I bought a 2nd Topeak Hexus II. Never found a better multitool.

If any of the Bristol crowd in here live near Emersons Green / Pucklechurch, I can tell you the motherlode of all sloe hedges. There was enough for me to make 5 gallons one year and have plenty left for everyone else!

Same as sloe gin. I slung a load of brambles and sugar (low on the sugar, easy to back-sweeten later if not sweet enough) in a bowl, mixed them up / bashed them to break up the brambles, then into a bottle / jar of the cheapest whisky you can find. Do as you do with sloe gin – dark place, leave it for months. I preferred to siphon off the clear as much as possible and try to leave the sediment untouched – it’s so much less faff than straining / filtering every drop.

Bramble Whisky is GREAT. Sugar, blackberries and whisky and it ends up like a very smooth yet light and potent port.

other colours available

” It does not clean the air of airborne particles such as dust, pollen, animal dander and moulds. ”

None of them.
Buy arm warmers.

A good article with the ‘murican point of view.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/in-the-middle-of-football-brilliant-bikes-1443411856

For a couple of years, Sainsburys had the cheapest gin available. Cheapest = bestest.

I took my daughter along to see the race today. We were at the top of Libby Hill for a few laps. What a fantastic atmosphere, crowds from far and wide and a superb race to top off an amazing couple of weeks here in RVA.

The weather here has improved, the forecast for rain lessened and the roads are drying nicely. It should be a GREAT race.

It’s been raining quite a lot here today. Given how little rain we’ve had over the last 2 weeks, the roads are going to be greasy. Forecast is high percentage of rain all day.
The wide road with all the monuments (Monument Ave) has some cheeky cobbled-ish sections near the monuments and might catch anyone off-guard as well.

You’ll get used to it.

Mick Jagger sang backing vocals on ‘You’re so vain’ by Carly Simon.

It’s more about them selling something that works. We’ve been waiting for this to come out for what seems an age, so interest has waxed and waned over the months/years.

Make sure the table saw can rip close enough for your needs. Their minimum gap from guide to blade varies between manufacturers. Conversely, look at how wide you can set the guide. Some saws have adjustable extensions to the table width and the wider the better.
Make sure the guide clamps true and straight. I nearly ruined a job using a borrowed table saw where the guide wasn’t quite square to the blade.
Buy a better used saw over a cheaper new saw.

I was at the finish line for most of the women’s TT.
*waves*

^that up there is Belle Isle and our mtb skills area. One of the best cities in the USA for urban mountain biking.
We ran a 14, 28 and 50 mile mountain bike ride last weekend. Close to 40 miles of it on singletrack and all of it in the city limits. You need to visit your family here
Tour de Fall Line Route

Lift kits are pretty easy. Mostly utterly pointless and detrimental to handling and usability of the pick-up, but mostly very silly.
Are they even road legal in the UK?

I have a 1987 Cannondale frame and forks with 2012 everything else on it. It works fine.

If I can sell things and get along without certain internal organs, I WILL have a DirtySixer, just because I can.

There’s more sensible 36ers out there. I’m in touch with the chap behind these – geometry for 6’6″ and above:
http://dirtysixer.com/%5B/url%5D

He’s working on a KickStarter project to make a batch and drive his production costs down. From what I’ve seen, he’s had Ventana doing his framebuilding for him.
https://www.facebook.com/DirtySixerBikes

Twin Six

For over 3 years, I worked for a certain boss. He would roll out of bed, not have breakfast and be driven to work. He would then fill his personal coffee machine and drink a full jug of black coffee before lunch. Several lunchtimes per week he would have a couple of pints with his lunch.
I’m not saying he was a bit of a roller coaster to work for, but he was.

Bit disturbing the research on this stuff. Basically suggests that formula is actively bad, not just not best.

You think that’s the case? I somehow think the world would be a different place if that were really the case.

We knew that Mrs TT would not be able to breastfeed beyond the 1st week. Between donated breastmilk (yes, support groups managed through NICUs etc) and formula, we managed to raise a now-very-healthy-and-well-developed 5 year old.
She hasn’t failed as a woman, but things are not at their most logical for her right now. Be supportive, be positive and try to relax. With formula at least it’s easier for you to help with feeding. I am convinced I bonded so much better with my daughter because I didn’t just hand her off every time she needed feeding.
The breastfeeding mafia are often harsh, but certain words do shut them up pretty quickly, especially when said very directly.

Here’s a pro tour in the area that should give you a few ideas:
http://www.trekamerica.com/tours/cy.html

If you can get out to Moab and see Arches National Park it’s fantastic. Other than that, you WILL have some long drives. It’s a BIG place and you need to travel. LV is worth a couple of nights for people watching, Zion is wonderful, most anything out there is fantastic to see on a massive scale. Don’t bother with a convertible, get a decent sedan car as you need comfort for the drive. Roads are good.

I was criticising the ideology of second wave feminism

Or oversimplifying an inherently complex and multi-layered 20+ year period in a fight for some level of equal treatment? Perhaps.

I think that the OP is a bluff, none of yer nonsense, straight-talking Yorkshireman.
No. I don’t understand him either. Is there a translator in the house?

I rode a very good new Specialized carbon FS thingy at a demo day a couple of months ago. All pressures were properly set up for me by the mechanic and yes, it was a very good bike indeed.
I then jumped straight on my Sultan and rode the same trails. There was not a 6 year & several $$$ difference between the 2 bikes (2009 Sultan). That gave me a lot of reassurance that the bike is still as good as I thought it was and it’s still far better at mountain biking than I am.

Justified.
It really did sneak under the radar, but utterly fantastic with the best characters. If you like rednecks, white supremacists, dope growers and other criminals.

Find your local carpet and vinyl companies. Go speak to them and tell them what you’re after ie size and commercial vinyl (as an example). They might have offcuts that size or know of jobs coming up that might have the same.
I did this a few years ago and was happy to wait a month or so. It led to 3 bedrooms and the kitchen all having top quality carpet / vinyl at rock-bottom prices.

Take professional advice, not a bunch of numpties on the internet!

It could be many things so you need to get the real source identified and dealt with.

Sort the draft and get some old carpet / mat to stand on.

The Mach area is awash with people connected to the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT) who are living in old buildings and have upgraded them to varying degrees of success. Keep asking around and you’ll find lime experts, natural insulation experts, building performance experts and even some hempcrete nerds. For the stonework, the work of Stafford Holmes is worth looking up. A real lime expert.

Is there any reason you couldn’t use battery powered tools instead?