To replace press ups, you want to do something like a dumbbell press or bench press.

Think about the actual movements you can do with those bands – you can't really replicate a press up.

I personally would buy a Netbook instead of an Ipad. If you have to even type a longish email on a touch screen, it becomes a pain.

And from an ergonomic point of view, touchscreen devices are horrible.

Probably smacked a hole in the sump over a speedhump or something. You could potentially bodge a fix with chemical metal or similar to get you to a garage, but there could well be bits of aluminium loose in the bottom of the sump.

They could be large bits and get stopped by the gauze in the oil pump pickup, or they could be small bits and have to work their way round to the filter. Or they could be numerous bitty bits and block the oil pickup gauze to a catastrophic level

I'd file the mech band.

It shouldn't be driven at all. Or started.

Possibilities – cracked sump if alloy, rusty sump if steel.
Or an oil feed hose may have popped a leak (there may be one for the turbo).
Or if it's got an oil cooler, that may have popped a leak.

The good news is that it isn't that expensive to change a sump on a VW as far as I know – lots of cheap sumps on Ebay. Pull the covers off, 10-15 bolts, new rubber gasket, smear of sealant, bolt it all back up. Done. Easily DIYable if you have a socket set.

Make sure it is oil – could also be aircon refrigerant (has some oil in, usually with a bright dye), power steering fluid or water.

TBH there are plenty of birds who think charm bracelets are a wee bit tacky. I'd go for a reasonable piece of jewellery or some stink from D&G. All her mates will be wearing guff like Light Blue, so she'll be the dog's bollocks.

Even if you don't sue successfully, the landowner will have to mount a defence, and therefore incur costs.

A week's working holiday in the San Fernando Valley so that she's got a hope of paying her way through uni?

The tyre is slipping around on the rim. Talc inside the tyre (reduces how much the valve is dragged around when the tyre slips), you can run higher pressures, crosshatch the rim with sandpaper, or try different tyres.

I had it loads with Panaracers, much less with Contis and Schwalbe.

I suspect that someone becomes a violent racist shit due to their own failings. I doubt making them fail would alter things much.

I've also found racism to be extremely rare in the full on "I hate 'em I do" sense. Even the people who vote BNP often aren't particularly racist, just frustrated and willing to listen to the tabloids.

If I did know any racist people, I'd talk to them about it.

Slight thread from the dead, but I want to show everyone the horror:

Raliegh Banana, £10 from an old bloke. Got a load of freebie bits for it – old Campag cranks, dual pivots (recessed bolts, hence the back one is on back to front) and a Campag / Open 4 front wheel. Stuck some new tyres on it and the wonderful bar tape you see now. And a second hand Campag front mech.

I also have this in the shed:

It's a 1954 Rotrax Shirley, found at the tip with a bent seatstay. 531 with a nice two tone paint job – would originally have been deep metallic blue with a duck egg headtube, but it's all a bit faded. Still has GB Kromo stem, chrome bars, CLB Alp brakes, Alatet headset, cyclo shifter etc. Unfortunately the mechs have gone missing, as have the wheels & cranks. And one of the brake levers is not a CLB one – it's a period lever with a lock barrel, so you can lock one brake on! Hoping to find some money, with which to pay the LBS for a respray, and some 27" wheels and old school (but probably not period correct) mechs.

There's only a braze on for a rear shifter, so I'm unsure as to whether it would have run 1×5 or if there would have been a rod operated front mech.

You'd do a lot of sitting still on your bike then. What a shit commute that would be.

I overtake on the right hand side, like you would on a motorbike.

Mate, if Mossad are going through your bins, you're in the shit whatever happens. It's only a matter of time before you meet a hot bird, end up drugged in the local Hilton and bunged on a flight straight to Tel Aviv.

There's no way you'd catch me going down the inside of a lorry, coming up to a junction or not. You can't see ahead, and the guy driving the lorry can't always see you. If I wanted to pass, I'd go around on the right.

Years ago I had a guy on a bike ride into the side of my car as I turned right. He'd just cycled up the inside of a parked lorry next to the junction. Fortunately he was going uphill, so it was all pretty low speed.

However, it's a very difficult accident to avoid, unless everyone is moving very slowly.

Do you not read the papers? There's been a big ruckus since the new charging system came in. And I'm not a dentist, or even someone who goes to one that regularly!

I can see some of the point – there are some economies of scale, only mixing one batch of amalgam etc, only one meeting with the receptionist, pleasantries, getting them strapped down to the chair, only one lot of anaesthetic. But equally, doing 3 fillings still doesn't take the same time as 1.

What he said. Go back to your problem definition stage – Bikes get dirty when you go mountain biking. So?

If you're a bit bothered, you use a plant sprayer, or water from your camelbak / bottles. If you're very bothered, you use a dirtworker or one of those rechargeable camel things that were advertised on here.

Or you sidestep the issue by using a £5 tarp or old sheet in the back of the car.

Personally, I doubt there are enough people who want something approaching dirtworker levels of performance in a human powered form to make this worth your while. You're basically creating a niche within what is already a niche market, and I reckon you'd need some very clever ways of minimising your development & marketing costs in order to get this off the ground and turn a profit.

Almost anyone can be trained to drop the oil on your car, swap the airfilter and put some new oil in. That's why your car is almost always going to be service by the apprentice, whilst the mechanics get on with drinking tea and trying to diagnose more complicated problems.

On the other hand, not many can be trained to be doctors or dentists. That's why they get paid more.

Try getting into a top ranked Russell Group institution without A Levels….

+2 (again).

I'm currently studying at one of the better unis in the UK. They have equivalency tables for qualifications all over the world – don't think they'll go solely by UCAS points. They work out the equivalent mark in something they understand (probably A-levels), then take the top ranked from that. I even know guys who did GCSEs and A-levels as kids in Sri Lanka with the intention of getting into a good UK uni.

To be fair, pretty much every religion around has some bit of the scripture that says "be a nice chap". There's generally also a bit that says "be a vengeful git". It just depends which slant the person takes on the book as far as I can tell. Fortunately most seem to go down the be a nice chap route.

By the way, is the Mormon thing an offshoot of Christianity or a whole new thing? I seem to remember the founder came across some stone tablets?

I find telling them that you're on the TPS normally results in a polite sorry and goodbye. No need to go berserk with them at all – it's not a pleasant thing for them either.

Of course, the international callers are outside the TPS regulations, but they're generally keen not to rock the boat – I suspect this is a message from on high.

Quite possibly.

Radweld might fix it, but my experience is that it also buggers up radiators, so you just end up with a different problem.

If you're patient and careful, you can probably have the dash out and put a new matrix in over a weekend. It's not hugely complicated, just time consuming.

The theory would say that powder coat will do sharp edges better than paint – any book on wet painting will tell you that paint is always thinnest on sharp edges.

Get Leechblock for Firefox. That way you can actually get something done.

What the bloke above said. The other thing to take into account is how many employers want to see A-level results, for graduate jobs. A decent set of A-levels is likely to be worth more to you than an ace set of vocational stuff.

Quechua T4.1 or T4.2 from Decathlon.

One has one massive bedroom, the other has two smaller ones.

They're pretty similar. I'd suspect the Shimano brakes on the Ridgeback might be slightly better, and it's got mudguards, so if you want them…

But. The Paddy Wagon looks loads cooler. So I'd buy that one, and get wet.

I've recently experienced H&S at work in another country.

Good point. Whenever I see any programme from the US with people doing manual work, I'm agog. The entire country seems to work with a level of safety that only mad old farmers seem to think is OK here.

Making companies pay for problems they create actually promotes economic efficiency. Goes for both environmental problems and personal injury.

Crikey. Sounds a bit wrong headed to me. H&S certainly isn't applied evenly across the board. A lot of private firms still skimp a bit, whilst a lot of public sector places go overboard. And of course, a lot more places use it it in the same way as the data protection act is used – a convenient way of saying "No, please get stuffed".

No water in your washer bottle is an offence. Perhaps only on a par with a broken bulb, but it is an offence. Certainly if you were in an accident, or you were simply in a 7.5tonne or more truck, then you could potentially be in big trouble.

I used to have to do a lot of driving for my work (no idea if that'd qualify me as a professional driver or not), and I always tried to make sure I had some screenwash in the tank – plain water does naff all to get bugs off your windscreen.

Insulation has the quickest payback of any energy saving technology. By a country mile.

Have a google for the uk-diy faq on it.

Maybe something with a 3 or 5 speed hub (Decathlon Elops)? Failing that, Ridgeback do some 6 or 7 speed Hybrids & rigid hub geared bikes. I think you'll find that you'll either get a bike with a few hub gears and a rigid fork, or lots of derailleur gears and a suspension fork. Ridgeback are pretty comprehensively distributed too.

Probably Red Kite in the UK, saw all sorts of odd critters in Aus.

I've also seen most UK species of bat, but they're not particularly impressive in looks.

take a good mechanic and hope you get lucky.

Problem is finding a good mechanic who's willing to give you an opinion on whether a car is any good or not – ours never would. Equally, I'd not want to buy from or sell to a friend in case of any ill feeling when things go wrong. I've bought loads of bangers, and the best you can do is drive it, see if it feels right (seller, location, the deal etc.), see if it sounds right, looks right, and if it drives right. There's no reason not to HPI stuff now the textcheck services are available for a couple of quid.

Mechanical problems are pretty rare nowadays, so long as the car's been maintained. Things tend to either work or be stuffed, so there's little "looking over" to be done. One thing that's always worth doing is opening the bonnet, checking the water, battery (most have a green go/no go indicator) and the oil. I've seem too many cars with no oil in, no water or a blown head gasket, and what seem to be genuinely oblivious owners.

It doesn't surprise me at all, given what I've cleaned out of the washer bottles of cars owned by tight arses. You have some manky water that's kept nice and warm, then you spray it through a nozzle, so you can breathe stuff in easily.

Given that Legionella can be fatal, and for someone to die costs the economy a fair bit of money, I'm happy for the government to research these things.

I've got one that needs a new pressure switch…

I'd be happy with £100. You will chip it sooner or later anyway unless you're super careful with it. I'd nip down to the car parts place and pick up a touch up paint.

I wouldn't be happy about not being told the full extent though.

Lid off, unscrew old one, screw in new one, swap cables over. Only gotcha is setting master / slave jumpers on the new drive, but there's always a label explaining it.

The old 1.6s – pre 95. You could pick up a gimmer owned model if you're lucky with low miles and in decent nick. The Rover dervs were bought in from Peugeot / Citroen for a while too.

As for insurance, get quotes. Always get quotes. I've probably said it umpteen times on here, but insurance group is only a small part of what determines the premium, and a very small part for TPFT. The big issue is how likely people are to crash that kind of car. You can have a high group car that's driven by low risk people, and get cheap insurance.