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Like Money Saving Expert?

OTOH I could tell you what I can remember about it – you fill out some forms with parents income, and you get some money.

You've just mentioned Foucault. I almost had a mouthful of sick then 😆

Foucault, another tosser who writes complicated gibberish that makes people go "there must be something in that".

LED type bulb that constantly fell out

Been there, done that, got the t-shirt – I think there must be grippers that wear in the mini mags. They're not LEDs though – just tiny halogen bulbs. Hence the joke amount of light when compared to an LED lamp.

I'd say my 3D maglite was comparable to an old Luxeon when it had a bulb in it. With a drop in, it's just daft 😆 And the C/D cell maglites are bombproof.

Usual spouting off from people who don't know what they're on about…

The A4 and Passat no longer platform share. The Passat is built on a modified Golf platform.

The A5 is on a modified A4 platform.

Money Saving Expert tells all. You'll use google a lot at uni – start now.

I'd not fork out for one again – IMO, they're typical of a lot of American stuff – more effort goes into shouting about how good it is than actually making it the best. They are well made and last, but they're not that bright.

With a cheap drop in, it becomes a useful torch, and D cell batteries mean that the run time is daft.

I reckon a lot of the maglites ever sold were off the back of the yank cops using them and their potential for bashing things.

We used to make loads of stuff, what do we make now?

We're still one of the world's leading manufacturers. It's just that everyone goes around saying "We don't make owt anymore. Disgusting." to the point that everyone believes it.

Our exports have actually fallen less and bounced back quicker than Germany's…

Well, it was just a suggestion, and others do use torches.

I have too, but it was 2xAA 3W CREE. A maglite's a bit too big 😀

What's the other way then?

Harragut. Same as Southwell is Sutthel and not South Well.

It's a cheapy drop in on an old 3D cell Maglite – claims 4-600 lumens (presumably depending on which Mag you have it in and batteries). They're from Hong Kong, via eBay, and are sporadically listed. Look for "Fusion 36".

It chucks a lot of light in a fairly wide flood, and it's going to live in the Girlfriend's car, on the basis that it's a light with batteries that won't self discharge, and a finely engineered aluminium bashing thing.

Edit: I'm not sure how I'd get on with it strapped to the handlebars 😆

Hmm. I've got a 400 lumen torch in the next room, which I suspect would be plenty for MTB, but as soon as your mate has 600 lumen lamp your eyes will adjust to that, and you'll want more.

Fantastic if you're a manufacturer of lights though 😆

I'm very much of the "you'd be surprised what you can get used to camp", as I used to do a lot of night work. We often found it was easier to walk around without lights at night as your eyes adjusted, so you had some distance vision. Walk around with a torch and you can't see anything beyond the beam.

The panic over he economy has been deliberately created by the Tories and their allies in the press to justify the cuts.

I didn't realise the likes of the IMF & World Bank were in the Conservative party's pockets.

Slight thread hijack, but what kind of lumens is considered normal for an MTB light these days?

How come people keep going on about transmission and gear boxes

Because it'll move from being something built into the back wheel to something that's attached to the frame or built into the bottom bracket.

TJ, you put far too much store in the differences between political parties. All of them tend to have spending plans within a few % of each other. They're not that different.

My personal view is that running the economy is much like managing inflation – expectancy, ie, general public opinion, is actually more important than any other factor. If the public think the books don't balance, you need to make it look like you're balancing them, because ultimately, it's consumer confidence and the propensity to spend or save that will kill or cure the economy.

Tron , good point to be fair, parties do tend to get voted out when the economy is poor

I'd say the pattern goes something like this:

Labour govt come in, eventually screw up the economy, get booted out.
Tories fix it.
Eventually people decide they can afford to be "nice" again.
Labour get elected again and we go back to the start.

Any historian care to name the last

time the Labour party left government without leaving a massive hole in the budget and the economy in a mess?

Lack of skill and awareness leading to lack of confidence?

I reckon that sitting too close to the steering wheel is a sure sign that someone's a shit driver. You just can't steer properly when you're that close!

Troopers are a pretty ancient design.

What about a full size Mitsu **** (Pajero)?

I reckon Bob Crow should think about what happened the last time Unions tried to take the government on. 😆

Seriously, I think unions have created some very unhealthy situations in the public sector. Cuts are painful, and it takes a crisis to get people to act – I doubt serious efficiency savings could be made without the heavy pressure from central government.

Elf – loser

Don't set him off again. This place is like a refuge for the hard of reasoning at the moment.

Robert Lindsay's from Ilkeston too if I recall correctly. Not that you'd guess.

I suspect we'll have someone from Pity Me posting up about "the real north" in a few minutes.

And yes, Pity Me is a real place.

Brian Blessed's Dad was a miner. Not sure if he's just well spoken or "posh" though. RP is the VW Golf of accents 😆

Mind you they also tailgate like crazy.

As far as I can tell, tailgating in France means "I want to go faster than you". So you move over, and they do.

In the UK, it fairly often means "I don't know what a stopping distance are".

Gearboxes are not needed as the std setup copes well enough.

On a FS bike, there are issues with the chain tension altering depending on the gear you're in, and the entire cassette / freehub / rear mech assembly is a fair chunk of unsprung weight, which reduces the performance of the suspension.

It'll come in from DH, and as soon as the price / reliability compromise is right, the whole world and his dog will want one, given that you'll be able to lose all the above parts and a chainring & mech.

Because they're idiots who don't know how to drive properly.

I suppose I'm decrying the constant incremental 'refinement' just to stimulate sales

Have a read of Schumpeter's stuff on innovation & creative destruction. As a rule, we see pretty steady improvements, with revolutionary stuff happening on a far rarer basis.

I reckon we'll see gearbox bikes along with some serious efforts to reduce unsprung weight in full sus bikes. It's obviously already on the way, and it'll make a massive difference to maintenance and the responsiveness of suspension systems.

And we're back round to basic misunderstandings of human behaviour again…

People associate with people similar to themselves. Strip Boris Johnson of all his cash, and you still have someone who very different to the average social housing tenant. I'm sure he could have a chat with anyone, but ultimately, he's too different to become "in group".

Vans do your head in compared with cars for long distance – take the old Eurovans – Dispatch/Scudo/Expert commercials and compare them with the C8/Ulysse/806 people carriers.

More or less the same vehicle underneath, but the van version is approximately 10^99 times louder.

I'd get something that's trimmed up as a car but can be turned back into a van – Berlingo or similar.

You might find it easier to work with an agent out in Taiwan who will be your main point of contact and he/she can do most of the liaising with factories on your behalf.

If you're going to work with agents, read up on how they work in the far east. In a lot of SE Asian countries, agents will be paid by both suppliers and customers, which can catch out Western buyers.

I suspect the other big problem is in cash flow and lead times – stuff takes time to be made, then a month or so to get here, so you're probably looking at 2 months lead time minimum. That means you need lots of stock, which means lots of cash. I'd be interested to know when you have to stump up – three months from shipment or three months from delivery? Or up front if you're a startup nobody.

So, do you think the Lidl compressor would have enough oomph to inflate tubless tires.

Easily. For seating tyres, the compressor's power is more or less meaningless. The tank is what provides the store of air needed – it's got one, so it'll do it. A decent inflator gun will help a lot though – the cheap ones can lose a lot of air around the sides of the valve.

I reckon that privately educated / grammar / comp are probably still the biggest social divides. Not in terms of who you're friends with etc. but in terms of the life you're likely to end up having.

Anyone who thinks class is nothing to do with your parents is fairly misguided. Statistically, your parents class has a huge amount of influence on how well you fare in education. And education has a big influence on hwo you get on in life.

3 40W-equivalent lamps is plenty in our living room.

Oddly enough, one high powered bulb is more efficient than several smaller ones.

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

Again, GCSE Science. A bulb turns electricity into heat and light. It's near 100% efficient at that task – there is no wasted energy as noise or going out of the exhaust.

As far as I remember, a gas boiler is something like 70-80% efficient. But of course, gas is cheaper than electricity for the same amount of energy.

A central heating boiler will be in the range of 20-30kW. A 100W bulb will be turning around 15W into light, and the rest into heat. So it's an expensive way to get 85W of heat, but it'll be a drop in the ocean at the side of the heating bill proper.

If you have the heat at the ceiling, and then the heat rises, the heat from the light bulbs would never get to where you are sitting, would it?

Convection. GCSE combined science. Was anyone on STW actually present at school or were you all too caned off your tits / busy worrying about our lizard overlord's plans for false terror attacks? 😆

As far as I can tell, no CFLs are any good. After a while, they all take too long to warm up, and the light they give off is poor – a normal bulb is more or less full spectrum, fluorescents are nowhere near. See below:

I'd be amazed if you can't order in proper bulbs from somewhere or other – Isle of Man perhaps? If not, you can now get Halogens packaged as standard bayonet fittings. They chuck out a nice light.

Have a read of this:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/sep/05/legalisation-drugs-antonio-maria-costa

Moral relativism on a very grand scale there! I suggest you go and watch a documentary or two about coca farming, the gangs that run the operations and their methods.

A problem that would be solved immediately if they were made legal.

It wouldn't. Making something legal here has no impact on the rest of the supply chain, it simply removes criminals from the UK end.

The difference is that generally when you take drugs (apart from maybe alcohol) you are only endangering yourself.

That's really, a very, very short sighted view. What about the many unpleasant people who make the supply chain possible?