In his book Armstrong said he was about to start on a conventional chemotherapy course when he got a call from an oncologist who followed cycling who said that this type of chemo could permanently damage his lungs. He subsequently underwent a chemotherapy regimen with this oncologist. That’s why his treatment was unusual. Regarding his fast recovery I think mental attitude has a lot to do with this- even in the depths of his treatment he was on his turbo trainer or out on his bike- being ovetaken by middle aged ladies at one point- this illustrates his determination to get better.

Lets not forget that he got cancer when he was under contract to Cofidis. If his career in cycling had finished at that point the insurance he had with Cofidis would have kept him comfortable for the rest of his life. Therefore the decision to come back to cycling was high risk becuase it meant forfitting the Cofidis money. How many of us here would have risked financial security for a long shot at sporting greatness?

it’s amazing how many of the TDF riders are asthmatic. ie: they have to use bronchiodilators.

So many of them, it’s amazing that the asthma marketing board haven’t held them up as a great example of what you can do if you try.

Not just cycling Brant- golden marathon girl Paula Radcliff puffs on the ventolin too.

Also Alessandro Petachi was given a short ban and sacked by his team for having too much salbutamol in his blood so although asthma treatments are sanctioned its policed and they aren’t allowed to useperformance enhancing levels.

I don’t think I’d ever like to meet Armstrong, I would have loved to before I read his first book (bought the week it was published here), but not afterwards

Got to agree with you there. I admire his sporting achievements but he’s definitely not the kind of guy I’d want to go down the pub with. Winners are often single minded driven individuals. Armstrong seems to need to carry a series of grudges around with him to give him the feeling that the world is against him which he uses as motivation so he can say “how to you like them apples?” when he’s won the TdF again.

Another example Tim Henman- appears to be OK guy but never had that edge needed to take him to the very top vs Andy Murray- total ar$e but has now won as much as Henman did in his entire career and will probably take a major soon.

At least Tom Kitchin has just won the Scottish heat of the Great British Menu so some justice there. The other guys food looked a bit too poncey

Armstrong can’t win with some of you as he can’t prove a negative- all he can do is continue to be tested and continue to be found clean.

Until there is proof otherwise I prefer to think of him as a talented athlete who simply trained better and harder than his rivals. He also concentrated on the one race. Maybe if Ullrich had been out training on alpine climbs in the early spring like Armstrong instead of getting pied up he might have given Lance more competition.

How many of them have Scottish chefs?

Hora I really don’t think you should worry about having a glass or two of an evening- everything in moderation. OK maybe if you’re combining that with a session at the weekend then cutting back might be wise starting with not getting blitzed at the weekend which probably does more damage.

If you can say “Education for the masses, not just the ruling classes” and make it rhyme you’re from the North.

As a Scot I tend to view anything south of Glasgow as The South. However having lived in Cheshire and now Wiltshire and travelled widely in the UK I’d say anything north of Birmingham is The North.

Demonise a group of people

How- by killing three thousand of your own and your allies people in some elaborate conspiracy? That’s pretty unbelievable even for republican neocons

You’ll be telling me next the USA didn’t land on the moon and it was all filmed on a Hollywood back lot.

Really? Has this been proven beyond all reasonable doubt? In a court of Law? Before a fair and impartial judge/jury? With both sides putting their case equally?

Well lets catch him and give it a try. In the meantime the balance of evidence, including a video of Bin Laden admitting it, seems to be that Al-Qa’eda were behind 9/11.

Twohats do you believe in little green men visiting us from space as well?

Invasion of the Bodysnatchers- the one with Donald Sutherland where the pods of the Boxer dog and his owner get damaged and the juices mix- result is boxer dog with man’s face- can’t look at a Boxer dog now without thinking of that.

Also I suspect that like Dan Hannan recent speech, just the simple fact someone is insulting and offensive is hugely appealing

Absolute nonsense. I’ve just listened to Hannan’s speech again and all I heard was a cogent argument against Brown’s public spending policy backed up with some economic statistics. Worst thing he called Brown was that he “sounded like a Breznev era apparatchik”. Hardly very insulting or offensive

Hannan’s speech was hugely appealing because he told the PM, in a very eloquent manner, exactly what a lot of us British electorate would like to tell him if we got the chance.

I’m afraid you’ll just have to tough it out with painkillers and anti-inflammatories. I broke 5 at once a few years ago and it took about 6 weeks before I felt well enough to get back on the road bike and I left it another month or so before getting back on the MTB as I wanted to make sure they were strong enough to survive another stack.

If you can sleep on your back then get one of these as it will stop you rolling over onto your ribs- worked well for me.

Oh and if you want to cough or sneeze wrap a towel or blanket tightly round your torso to support the ribs. Make sure you take at least 10 deep breaths every hour to oxygenate your lungs- taking shallow breaths because of the pain is a recipie for a chest infection.

I use a full length Thermarest- full length all the way unless you’re a weight weenie

I’ve got a Chemistry PhD and did it because I wanted to do R&D in industry and as Gary Lager said its basically a requirement if you ever want to get into a leadership position in that subject. If you are even half thinking it would be a good idea for what you want to do in the future or just like the idea of doing 3 years research and you’ve got the chance then go for it. Don’t get a job thinking if you don’t like it you’ll pack it in and do a PhD because by then you’ll be used to having money and you’ll probably never want to go back to being a poor student. Also employment prospects will probably be a lot better in three years.

Yes the Williams Conference Centre is quite impressive. As well as the cars the museum contains displays with the mechanicals like the brake systems, hydraulic systems etc. I’ve been a couple of times the last time being for a team building event where one of the activities was acting as pit crew to change the wheels on Juan Pablo Montoya’s 2002 car- we managed 9.5 secs for all four wheels which I thought was pretty good for complete beginners

As I live in the south of England the nearest trail centre is miles away- probably Cwm Carn.

Nearest trails are the N Wessex Downs which I can access straight from my front door- not technically challenging but there’s miles of them.

Nice one Stoner you’ve found that even GG has a limit to how far he can push the “it was all Maggie’s fault” line

Yes Kelvin I agree the government couldn’t let the banks fail but the point is that if Culpability Brown hadn’t raised public expenditure and government borrowing to the extent he has (with so little to show for it) we wouldn’t now be in as deep a hole as we are after having bailed the banks out.

menothim you didn’t say where you’re moving from so its a bit difficult to say if Glasgow will be an improvement for you or not. Having lived there many years ago I’d say there are many worse places to live (mostly in England)

What should he have done?

Sitting with a serious expression shaking his head from time to time might have been a good start instead of the sixth form antics.

Marvellous stuff from Hannan- why isn’t Cameron getting stuck in like this back in Blightly?

If you don’t regularly do a sport which involves running then don’t do it you’ll injure yourself. Guy at work who’s a serious Rugby player and trains regularly has run a couple of half marathons with minumal preparation and got round although he suffered badly towards the end

But it’s some of Science’s wild claims, that I am wary of. And the way that so many people blindly follow, and believe in it, because ‘it’s Science, and Science is always right’. Regardless of whether or not they actually understand the complicated stuff in the first place. Hands up who understands that big collidey thing? Or this Quantum Physics malarky?

I thought I’d put you right 4 pages ago. Science is not always right. Scientists are always putting forward theories and hypotheses that are subsequently proved by experiment and observation to be false. Einstein himself refused to believe in an expanding or contracting universe and fudged his general theory of relativity to accommodate his belief that the universe was unchanging. He was subsequently proved to be wrong by Hubble amongst others who discovered by observation with new telescopes and radio astronomy that the universe is expanding. Just as Newton’s theory of gravity (which is still a good model) was displaced by Einstein’s theory of relativity so has Einstein’s theory been built on by subsequent generations with new thinking and better technology.

As for understanding stuff before you can believe it you probably don’t understand quantum physics but it is still one of the best tested scientific models of the universe we have- the microprocessor and memory in your computer are a result of our understanding of quantum theory so I don’t have to take it on faith or understand that quantum theory works I can observe the results of it in front of me.

Piffle – the public sector suffers from historical massive underfunding hence the problems with it and Labour has reformed most of it for the worse

Balderdash- look at all the cash thrown by Brown at the NHS and yet we have the disgrace of Staffordshire- if that’s not squandered money what is?

Spot on Aracer.

Apart from the damage he has wrought on the country by squandering billions on an unreformed public sector and his total inability/arrogance to either see when he is wrong or admit it its his pathetic insincere smile that he developed when labour spin doctors told him he should smile more that really makes me want to give him a slap.

Just because other people can do it doesn’t mean you’ll be able to. At the end of the day you may not be genetically equipped to do 18mph

They can’t prove it, as they don’t have a ruler that will stretch to the star, or any genuine way of knowing how old the rock really is. Just educated guesses

They are not educated guesses they are estimates built on tested scientific theories of light and radioactivity. I think science may know something about them- witness lazers and atomic weapons. Good thing about science is that it recognises that there is always uncertainty and that it is very difficult to prove something- Einstein’s theory of relativity has been tested by experiment and observation and has come through time and again but it still remains a theory not a law.

By the way you can’t measure someone’s foot and know that it is 10 inches. You can only know it is 10 inches plus or minus the error in the ruler and the error in your observation of where you think the person’s foot comes on the scale of the ruler.

No, I’m not having it. Science does not in any way have all the answers. There is a possibility, that some Creationist theories might be right.

Science may not have all the answers but your comfortable early 21st century lifestyle is built on scientific method i.e. postulating a hypothesis then trying to prove it by observation or experiment. So I think science has done pretty well up to now. Tell me one natural phenomenon that religion has successfully explained. If past performance is any guide to the future I’ll put my money on Darwin and science being right instead of a bunch of religious zealots trying to bend evidence to fit their religious beliefs.

Ah sorry didn’t realise it was Great War fliers as apposed to great (as in really good) war fliers

Here’s one you may not have heard of.George “Screwball” Beurling

Apparently he wasn’t a great pilot, his take offs in particular were awful, but in common with a lot of WWII aces he had extrodinary eyesight which meant he could see the enemy before they saw him. He wouldn’t just spray bullets at at an aircraft but pick particular parts of it to shoot at.

True Faith- New Order

So yet again the responsible majority have to pay more because of the irresponsible minority.

Will you be able to see it when your hair grows back?

It’ll look great when you’re 60 and its faded and the skin its on is now half way down your bicep.

Sound quality is OK- about MP3 standard. I’m using it as a quality control tool to listen to stuff I’m thinking about buying on CD – so far have saved myself a fortune. Reckon if Spotify had been around since I started buying music I’d have around half the LPs and CDs I have now. I can go a day without getting an advert on it which makes me wonder how long its going to survive without advertising revenue. I could put up with an advert every 15 mins or so but any more than that I’d stop using it as £10 a month for advert free use is too much for streamed music.

Likewise don’t do it. My sister-in-law is a teacher and is most disenchanted. Main problem is the paperwork, government targets etc getting in the way of actually teaching the children. She’s always working in the evenings and weekends so her hourly rate must be pants. So they get a lot of holidays, but holidays during school hols can cost getting on for twice the price.

We’ve just done our 100th geocache. Its like going on a mini treasure hunt and is a great way of getting kids out on a walk- try telling mine they’re going to see history and wildlife and see what response you get.

I use the same GPS I use for hillwalking and MTBing which is a Garmin Legend. Any old GPS will do for Geocaching but it helps if its connectable to a PC either by USB or comm port as this means you can download waypoints straight into the GPS from Geocaching.com

The Twelve Dreams of Dr Sardonicus by Spirit

Never been able to set off a speed camera but have managed to light up those your speed ones that light up if you’re over the limit. Maybe wrapping yourself up in aluminium foil would present a better target for the radar in the Gatsos. If I lived near one I might try it.

No- no second bidder

I’m tending to think that its probably not worth insisting on payment and risking vengeful -ve feedback for a fiver now that sellers can’t leave feedback on buyers,

Still p*ssing me off though.