I've lost all faith in Schwalbe since I had one bead stretch and another tyre go out of shape. I have to say that Kenda are in my good books. I had some terrible ones on a cheap Giant back in the day, but the Nevegal is fantastic.

The pirate game must be Monkey Island?

Civ is worse than smack, crack and fags all rolled into one. Avoid.

Christ almighty. People view the world through a lense shaped by their past experiences. It's not a new concept.

Similarly, people tend to choose the familiar over the unknown.

If the customer has always had good business relationships in the past with female sumo wrestlers covered in Yakuza tattoos & wearing burberry, and you send a clean cut bloke in a shirt and suit, you're probably not going to get what you want. Regardless of whether the person you're dealing with is prejudiced or not, they're dealing with the unknown, which is uncomfortable. So they will choose the more comfortable option.

To me, getting a tattoo is placing yourself in an "out" group. The majority of people don't have them, so you're increasing the chance of being seen as an unknown quanity. Simple as that.

My 100mm Marzocchis are more or less the same axle to crown length as my old 80mm Marzocchis.

What chip? I've heard that a reprofiled throttle body and a chip can make a big difference to the MK3 ABF (that's the one you have).

Could be so crude as to ask what money too? I'm in the market for a new car soon 😆

I reckon On-one need an extra pair of hands in the warehouse to be honest.

If I've still not found productive employment in Week 39, I'll give them a buzz 😆

TBH so long as amateur web designers know what looks amateur, they're in with a fair chance – just go for basic and simple. It's what Apple do, afterall 😕

22/36 works fine for me. No need for a bash.

Campag is better. It's like putting a Lexus LFA against a Ferrari. They might be about as fast as each other, but one's a Ferrari.

Didn't expect to be hit with the huge ethical impact of aiming a gun at someone and then firing it.

Had you handled a proper firearm before?

Ha. Just looked at your example site. That's very simple, basic HTML with a bit of Java.

I don't think it would be legal here though (for a business website), and it's not likely to google rank well – all the text is in images, so it's not accessible for disabled people, and google can't read it.

What exactly are you wanting to do?

Don't go with Joomla. I'm reasonably technically savvy, but Joomla is a nightmare.

HTML, again, is a pain in the neck. The basics are simple to learn, but you end up producing a site that looks like it's from 1995. To produce something that looks up to date, you've got to learn a lot more, and in my book, that's stepping so far outside most people's competencies as to be counterproductive. ie, if you're running a business, you'd be better off working on the business and paying an expert.

depends on your definition of 'pull' 'up' & 'bars'

Philosophy / Sociology graduate? 😆

Is there good evidence that this will work or is it just a expensive follie.

Of course not. Environmental consultancy firms are mostly staffed by GCSE drop outs with a pack of crayolas. Their fees are actually performance based – the more articles in the Daily Mail and quotes from the Taxpayer's Alliance, the more they get paid.

Mitigation is based on solid scientific evidence and professional judgement. The science answers the question of "Does X mitigation technique work?" and the professional judgement comes in when you actually select the amount and type of mitigation required.

The level of qualification required to do this sort of work is pretty high. MScs are very common, and PhDs aren't unusual. They don't go in for guesswork, as a) they give a monkeys and b) they can be sued if they cock up.

What's with quoting things that nobody seems to have written?

I'd guess it's rather more than firefighters or police marksmen get.

Thank god. Have you seen the accidental discharge rates for armed police?

TBH I'm really surprised at people's attitude to conservation on a mountain biking forum.

It's a european protected species, the highest level of protection afforded to animals in the UK. Carry on the way people on here talk, and we'd end up with extinctions on our hands.

I thought they ran without batteries, something to do with your body movement ?

Unlike a standard automatic watch, a Kinetic will keep time even when it's not worn. There's a backup system (a battery or capacitor) which keeps the time. If you don't wear it, the self winding movement will start running down, and the backup system keeps time. As soon as the self winder is running again, the backup system resets the watch to the correct time.

TBH I'm not sure if's a combination of an automatic movement and a digital backup timekeeper or just generates electricity to run a quartz movement. Either way, it's got a backup battery.

Unless it's a very fancy battery, it shouldn't be anywhere near that expensive. Think more like a tenner.

The fancy batteries are usually reserved for things like the Seiko Kinetics.

Is it a new TV with a freeview tuner built in?

I've always found that TVs with built in freeview tuners have TERRIBLE analogue tuners. We have a JVC downstairs that barely picks up analogue terrestrial TV, whilst our old analogue telly got a crystal clear picture.

I'd think about taking it back. For a telly manufacturer making a Freeview TV, the analogue tuner is an easy place to cut cost.

I've been to Harrogate, quite nice, why is everywhere else up there mostly a lot cheaper?

Because of the real long term problems related to the decline of industry. Look at somewhere like Sheffield, and Hallam is one of the wealthiest wards in the country. Ecclesall Road is awash with fake tan and Range Rovers. Go down to the Don Valley, and things are pretty grim.

End results is that whilst average property prices are much lower, decent houses are still pricey. Harrogate is one of few places that is more or less solidly middle class.

In all honesty, just get one with buttons. Anything which relies on touch screen for the majority of it's input is an absolute pain in the arse.

London, to me, would be hell on earth as somewhere to actually live. Loads of great stuff to visit, but when you're on one of the overland tube trains, you see the houses the majority of Londoners live in.

Tiny bits of flat roof turned into a "roof terrace" with 3 pot plants and a deckchair as your outdoor space? Stuff that. Same goes for using the tube on a daily basis – if you made prisoners experience that everyday, Shami Chakrabarti would be straight round with a stern face and a copy of the Guardian.

The yanks on average get about half as many holidays as we do in Europe. That'd put me off a bit.

£190k.

It won't be a £190k bridge. I'd bet that figure is actually the cost of environmental consultancy fees for the entire project. Which as it's a bypass, seems pretty reasonable.

I'd roundup all the weeds on the actual perimeter of your plot (ie, as allocated, not as he thinks). Really thouroughly. On a windy day.

Then plead ignorance when all his shit dies.

And Brabantia are piss takers.

They are now. Back in the day you could get a pedal bin for £25 or so from them. They also briefly sold the best car windscreen scrapers ever.

Well, there were about a thousand or so to start off with.

The old Jag XJ40 with a LSD was a giggle. Wallowy, but so easy to control.

I miss driving sports cars and now driving boring comfort functional cars -will wait for mid life sports car?

That's the thing. I've driven a fair few cars, but still one of the most entertaining I've driven is the original Ka. There's naff all power, but the steering is absolutely incredible. Any car can be built to be as good as it can be, which is why I dislike cars with dull handling.

I didn't realise I was applying for a job.

There are websites which calculate this. Try googling "Take home pay calculator UK".

Pedal Bins. I've yet to find one where the lid opening mechanism or hinge doesn't go south within a year.

Brabantia.

Sportswool is normally a synthetic / merino mix.

It is tougher, if anything breathes better, dries far more easily.

china where labour is cheap as chips

That'll soon be "was cheap as chips" 😆

I take it you don't do any scientific computing?

You know what? I don't. I'm mostly involved in psuedoscience myself.

For me, and many average computer users, the lack of MS Office becomes a major problem with a Linux desktop. OpenOffice might be similar, but it's not the same. Google Apps is handy, but it's about equivalent with MS Works.

I can understand the appeal of Linux, the ability to really tinker with things etc. but most of us just want to have the damned thing do what we want with the minimum of fuss.

I'm really not against Linux per se. For average joe users doing very basic stuff, it's fantastic. My mum had a PC running Debian for years. It did what she wanted and didn't pack up like Windows machine would. However, if she were actually trying to get work done on it, and had prior experience of MS Office (she'd always had a secretary), she'd have lobbed it out the window.

I reckon this is a problem that will solve itself.

At present, carbon fibre is used mainly for Carlos Fandango bits, and as far as I know, laid up by hand. As a result, the cost of carbon parts is going to be heavily weighted towards the cost of the labour making them. Saving a few bob on recycled carbon isn't going to be a great move, particularly if it means more weight.

Once carbon stuff starts being commonplace, and mostly machine made, we'll see recycled carbon fibre become more useful. The savings on materials will be more worthwhile, and there'll still be a weight advantage over stuff like glass reinforced nylon.

My above formula is based on annual interest rates and you adding an extra £100 a year (hence the + £100 for cell A2).

Don't the headline AER rates take into account the way the monthly / daily rates compound these days? I thought there had been a big hoohaa about it…

Thinking on, the only reason I can see for a lot of oil to be coming out of the intercooler in any volume is for the turbo oil seals to be dead. You normally get some oil in the intake air from the crankcase ventilation. It's a question of how much oil I suppose!

LOL!

Try and produce a large document in OpenOffice. It's a pain in the neck. For the standard desktop user, Linux isn't great. It's very good at other stuff, but it's not a brilliant desktop OS. Mainly due to the choice of software available.

Granted, Linux can do all sorts of stuff very well, but it's not things that are on the average user's list of wants.