They don't need to be told not to prosecute people for doing things that are not illegal.

To be fair, they probably do.

I wouldn't – a mate's got one, and it's poxy compared to current kit. That said, resistive screens work when you're wearing gloves.

Modern petrols (and indeed ones for the past 10 years!) have EGR valves, dual mass flywheels, inlet flaps, turbochargers, intercoolers, multiple injection pumps and highly sensitive injectors, CATs.

Yes, but petrol engines are far less likely to lunch EGR valves and DMFs as a rule – they don't run sooty, and they don't have anywhere near the violent torque spikes a diesel does.

The only thing on that list a you'd expect a petrol to munch is the turbo, as petrol ones run rather hotter. However, the only "normal" car I know of with a reputation for doing turbos in is the 320d, as they're thrashing a small turbo hard to get big power out of the diesel engine without a lot of log.

My Nephew has a Wii. Every game I've played on it has been really, properly rubbish. Including Mario Kart, which I absolutely loved on the SNES.

Are you happy to state that the commencal meta 5.5 is far better quality than a Turner 5 spot?

One's about 3 to 4 times the price of the other. Re-read the sentence you quoted…

I think you're extrapolating a bit there!

I put a value in having a bike being crafted by someone who actually rides and loves bikes, rather than a production line where each person does one weld and passes ie on.

I don't know why. Production line built stuff is generally of a far higher standard than things built by other methods at the same price.

Evidence as I call BS

A council had some environmental advice, part of which was to cut the grass less often on verges. This caused great consternation with the grass cutting men, who were losing wages, so ultimately a relatively simple recommendation created a situation where an entire new incentive system had to be worked out. This was given as an example in a lecture by someone who was there.

I don't think this situation has been described in any peer reviewed journals or newspapers though, which is scandalous, given the importance of small scale pay disputes in local councils.

so do you reckon i should just go in and say…."we want that sofa in this colour, but not at that price….." as a starter.

No, you go in and let the salesman think he's selling you a sofa (ie, "We're looking for a leather corner sofa". Going straight in with a very direct approach isn't going to yield the best results. Once you've had 10 minutes bouncing on sofas and chatting with him, then you start with something along the lines of "I like this, but I'm not happy to pay XYZ for it".

However, you lose some bargaining power by taking the 3 year interest free credit (which is obviously factored into their price / costings), and if they do have no haggle policies, I suspect you'll get nowhere.

As it stands, that sofa's on for 1900 on their website. Similar stuff from Ikea is considerably cheaper, and I'd expect it to be of similar quality (the pricier Ikea stuff tends to have 5 year+ guarantees). I'd personally take a close look at the quality of the leather, as most furniture stuff is very low grade – suede or synthetic leather that's been textured and painted.

you do wonder if anyone actually pays full price for any of these items? When they can discount by 50 or 60% 18 times a year it kind've suggests the product is overpriced for the rest of the time..

Just had a look at the dfs website and plenty of sofas at half price.
Thats before you start haggling that they are reducing the prices: therefore there is a LOT of padding in their prices (we assume their sofas are padded), so if you start haggling properly then you will get it for whatever you want to pay.

Have you two been living in a cave? DFS have been using this sales strategy for decades. Nobody ever buys a full price sofa from DFS – as a rule the full price stuff is on the price list, but not in the showroom, which is enough to keep them within the letter, if not the spirit of the law. Compared them with others and I suspect they're not particularly cheap.

Haggling is like selling. Having a bit of a rapport with the salesman is going to get you far better results than just asking for a discount – from his (objective) point of view, he's spent time with you, will have targets to meet etc. and will want to get some return on that time, so if he thinks you will walk out without buying (ultimately, you must be happy to do this – unless you're a very good actor, he'll know if this is the ONE SOFA IN THE WORLD that suits your living room), he'll be more likely to give you a good discount.

The other thing is that we're not objective, as much as we kid ourselves that we are. Make the bloke like you and think there are good reasons for giving you a discount (ie, young couple setting up in life, kids on way, hard up, whatever), and he'll be more likely to do so, even though from a pure cost benefit analysis of his position, it makes no difference if you're nice or not.

You have to think ruthlessly but act cuddly. Simples.

Mine are obsessed with cutting the grass verges.

A lot of councils pay the blokes who mow on piece rates. So the verges and parks get mown every 15 minutes. It doesn't change as that means upsetting the union 😀

Safety issue there I am afraid as making the stem hollow (drill etc) might weaken its functionality. Stem manufacturer will never have that.

Most of the stems I have are hollow…

I've thought about this a fair bit, and there is a way of making a nicked bike remotely identifiable, but it's not GPS, and it's not a great solution.

Pretty much every variety of crime increases when it's sunny. BAN THE SUN!

If it's the alcohol that makes football fans turn into sub-humans what makes them drink to excess during the World cup?

The fact that they're subhuman.

I do like the aesthetics of them, but tell me are they a nightmare to own and live with on a day to day basis? Would I regret getting one?

Yes and Yes.

They're noisy, they're slow, the heaters either freeze or gas you if they're not working properly (which is most of the time), they go rusty, most of them have been owned by at least 5 dippy people with no idea how to run an old car. AND they have a carburettor, which is enemy number 1 of the bloke who doesn't want to spend time servicing his car. And they break down all the bloody time (and yes, there'll be someone who has one that doesn't, but chances are you'll have the one where some chump used silicone sealant instead of a new sump gasket, and you'll only find out when a lump of it blocks an oilway).

I love cars, but I'd own almost anything else instead of a beetle. The thing is, they just aren't very good even when they're perfect.

Seriously, you can run old cars for a giggle, but there are two things you need. Fuel injection and decent rustproofing.
Which takes you down the route of the MK2 Golf or an old sporty Merc / BMW from the 70s-80s, that was dinitroled / ziebarted back in the day.

MK1 MR2s that aren't rusty are beginning to fetch very good money.

If I had to drive a people carrier, I'd be making the second car the sportiest thing I could find.

I hear Ton and TJ are single…

Now that would be one hell of a civil partnership!

My mate may be able to miniaturise their existing product but the problem is where to put it? Got to be inside the tube and a small watch size battery …

I thought briefly about this, and it'd be difficult to make work – GPS signals are unlikely to get through tubes. Hide it in the frame and you'll just see bike being broken for bits very quickly. And so on.

There are still compressors hanging around in some branches of Aldi I think. Have a look around all your local ones.

My GPS reckons 10.5.

Round about September. The young look like gold/pale yellow bits of bootlace – about 4 inches long.

"Is it the world cup or Euro 96?"

Cardiotrainer is a very good sports tracker.
Google sky map is just cool.

I wouldn't employ anyone who didn't know what they wanted to do.

I, on the other hand, know what I want to do (get some experience and then start my own business), I've just got no idea what industry I want to do it in 😆

You can still get 7 speed freewheels & cassettes.

You can't put a 8 or 9 speed cassette on a 7 speed freehub though.

I like to stop for a sandwich and to quietly die half way round. Rather slower than that!

Recieving stolen goods is already a crime. I'm not sure what the solution is – the only thing that's stopped car crime is making cars virtually unstealable, which is rather more difficult to do with a bike.

Are they all like this ?

Yes. The physics dictate that if you chill some air by sucking all the heat out of it, you need to dump it somewhere.

Work out a way of tensioning the headset, put a cog on the steerer, and mount the handlebars on a dummy steerer, with another cog on it.

Like so:
http://www.bikemagic.com/news/images/ib06_cdalereversedetail_hi.jpg

Conti rubber queen folders are going cheap on Ebay. Not really summery semi slicks though.

Maybe nudge the boss towards implementing some kind of QA activity? Something like ISO9001 would mean that testing procedures etc. have to be codified (but I expect they already are for the electrical regs?). Or you could suggest he implements random spot checks?

We only need to replace those leaving us though, we don't need to grow continuously.

And UK birthrate is well below replacement rate. Has been for over 30 years.

As long as they're nice middle class ones though…?!

I couldn't give a monkeys about class. I'd just like them to be somewhat well adjusted and productive members of society.

Can you give me a good reason why I should be paying for YOUR children? If you can't afford them, DON'T HAVE THEM.

We need people to have kids in order to pay our pensions and operate our economy when we're all wrinkled old prunes staring out over Bournemouth seafront. Simple as that.

To do otherwise (ie, rely on immigration) is stupendously risky.

watch how quick you get transferred to the NHS if things don't go well

A very good point. In some private hospitals, if things go wrong on the operating table, they'll be sticking you in an ambulance and taking you to the NHS, because they don't have the emergency kit.

That was an eye opener

Ding! To have a comfortable middle class life and sitting around proclaiming "I'm one of the proletariat I am" is just ridiculous. People do shift between classes, but generally retain their values & social links. It'd be hard not to, given that a lot of these are pretty much set in early life.

The truly middle class can work hard to accumulate more wealth, or can kick back and take a lower paid, lower stress job and live in the cottage in the country that the family have owed for generations….

If you substitute "upper" for middle class, you might be onto something.

Here's the Economist article for anyone who's interested:
http://www.economist.com/world/britain/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15777629

There was an interesting article on this in the Economist a while ago.

Most people in the UK are middle class – work in middle income, middling skill level jobs etc. However, they tend to identify themselves a working class.

Those who identify themselves as middle class are generally more like upper middle & upper class – read any typical Polly Filla article in the Telegraph about the middle classes struggling to pay the school fees and find the time to shout at the Filipino nanny. 😆

However, people see the aristocracy etc. as the upper class proper, but they're such a small number that they're barely worth including in demographics classifications.

They don't come with shock pumps you know. It's a scandal! Nearly wipes out the £400 saving off RRP 😆

I don't like cafetiere coffee much, too much grindyness gets through.

And no, you can't make espresso with a filter machine, you make filter coffee. Espresso is not the only coffee!

My experience of coffee from the pod machines is that they can taste a bit synthetic, particularly the Nescafe pod latte / cappucinos.