I seem to have one of the real deals – no date! Spent much of Monday going through my piggybanks but no joy – found it in my change today! Offers to jemerson@stw

MacSween’s butcher (I think) in Bruntsfield, just before Holy Corner used to get loads of awards for their haggis – it’s the one with all the sheepskins hanging in the window. Not sure if it’s still there or not TBH.

One of my mates supervises a Bike Hut and he really does know his stuff. Unfortunately, many of his ‘underlings’ are utterly clueless. He delights in telling the tale of overhearing a conversation between one of his staff, and a clueless customer;

CC – “My disc brakes squeak all the time, even when I’m not using them!”

Underling – “Buy a tin of this (hands CC a can of GT85) and spray it all over the discs before you ride – that’ll stop them squealing”.

This twit can’t be sacked apparently, because his mum’s a shop floor supervisor and has been there for donkey’s.

……I am sure that if NASA can afford to do all that research into getting someone up there, they can chuck a fair amount of cash at the camera industry and say make us a camera that will work under X/Y/Z conditions.

Well, the cameras were Hasselblads – the best of the best back then (and perhaps now?). The chap who was in charge of supplying the cameras, one of Hasselblad’s chief techie guys, was on telly a few years back, very reluctantly pointing out a few flaws in the photographs.

There was one glaringly obvious flaw – there are crosshairs at the corners of the viewing screen (they are printed ‘+’ shapes on the ground glass sceen) and one of these was obscured by an object in the photo, which is impossible. This leads me to believe that if nothing else, the photos were certainly extensively doctored, or worst case, completely faked…

Hire a cheapy car and do the Garden Route in SA – did it on honeymoon last year and on a budget…. Great scenery, loadsa cheap places to stay and you can eat out every night for £5. And you can smoke in the pubs!!

What is that blue, welly boot thing hanging off the crossbar?

Aye, Mastiles – I remember that thread…… Daft old witch! :evil:

Lol @ project’s old biddy story and the signs……

I would actually far prefer it if the neighbours ran out their house when they saw me parking, and tried to give me a pice of their mind. At least then there’s the possibility of discussion.

What got / gets me is the anonymous notes (“dont park yer fook1n b’stard car here again you c*ntin f*ckface”, was one memorable missive) which leave you standing in the street fuming and looking wild-eyed and suspicious at all the neighbours’ windows. Makes you feel awful – totally impotent unless you go round banging on random doors…..

See my previous post ^^^

Might have to look at building a car-port in front of the garage (at the back of the house). Bit dodgy though, as the land the garage is on isn’t really owned by anyone, and the land beyond the garage is in a similar state of limbo – planning nightmare!!

hero – not gonna happen. Mrs Removed has to commute 40 miles and do a load of home visits throughout the day. I’m a wedding photographer (had one in Worksop on Fri and I live near Durham!) and there’s no way I can carry all my gear in a Bob trailer…. I also do various commercial jobs and portrait shoots which makes my car, sadly, indespensable.

Some of the houses do have two cars and seem to manage alright – some have garages and park in them. I have looked into extending our garage which is one of these modular things, made up of flat panels, but the cost of extending the base and buying more panels is more than just buying another garage!

The wife is usually home before me, so her car usually sits outside our house – we do try to swap spaces as much as possible, so our cars aren’t sitting outside anyone’s house for more than a day.

I just want to get on with the neighbours, but they are making it bl00dy hard!

EDIT: Jaysus aP – sounds like you live in a warzone!!

Wouldn’t mind parking in the next street if I didn’t think someone was looking out their window cursing and thinking of running their keys along my car :-(

My Mule must have been the runt of the litter. Once I’ve packed a paclite jacket, a sandwich and my (minimal) tools, there’s no way on God’s green earth I could fit in my D300 (or D200) with even a small prime attatched.

Simples.

Used to do a spot of busking in Aberdeen / Edinburgh. I know about five songs from start to finish (to sing at least) and just fleshed them out a bit. Also did a lot of picky / instrumental stuff to give my voice (and everyone elses’ ears) a rest.

I’d highly recommend learning some cheesy upbeat stuff too – you’re going to be appealing to the lowest common denominator of musical tastes – how about, “I’m in Love with a Fairy Tale”? :D

Instant reaction is to say don’t worry about benefits, but these days, they are probably on the look out for that kind of thing, and it is a very public performance….. They can’t prove how much you’ve earned though…..

I play a mean game of pool, does that count as a sport? Used to do a spot of climbing – was good but too lazy to put in any real work.

Still get the airguns out for a play sometimes, but always been an average shot. Mountain biking skills not too bad ‘cos I ride with guys much better technically than I am so I’m always pushing. Stamina not what it was, but still better than the twenty-somethings I ride with.

Shooting cigarettes out of yer mates’ mouths from accross the room with a rubber band used to be my personal favourite. Except they’ve spoiled that with the smoking ban.

Ditto project – you can write a good, sound business plan in a day. Ask business link for one of their generic templates and also ask to see some sample (real) business plans.

Most local authorities have start up grants (often 50/50 – they’ll match your investment) which require you to have a BP – if you can get a hold of this funding, you could ask your bank to match it.

It’s a case of letting go and devoting your life to a cause. I’m an entrepeneur (I suppose) and the biggest wrench for me was understanding that really, you don’t need someone else to make the decisions for you – the ones that affect your life.

I now love my job. Simples.

BBSB, I see your Orkney Twatt, and raise you a French Pinas.

How do people feel about the reintroduction of the belt in schools?

I’m just old enough that I remember being belted – it was for a fairly minor misdemeanour, but was probably the result of p1ssing off my teacher over many months. I’m quite sure I deserved it….

There were a few psycho teachers who over-used it, but given the right controls, it’s an extremely effective deterrent. Is there any going back?

Or……

Oh sod it – not working….

mk1fan – are you my Dad?

Reese’s peanut butter cups. Nom-nom-nom.

Same boat here – at least four cans a night, or when finances allow, a bottle of red (or two if the wife’s having a glass….).

My mate’s dad who’s only 15 years older than me had a massive heart attack a month ago – his consumption was very similar to mine (both smokers too)and it really made me sit up and pay attention to my intake.

That lasted all of a week. Dagnabbit.

It’s actually surprisingly easy to knock it on the head – I didn’t have any bother sleeping and yes, I did feel instantly better. Note to self – follow your own advice.

My Boardman MB Pro has one of those FSA jobs linked to above – looks different to the one in Mrs. Removed’s Carrera though. Could be wrong…

Fair point above, re the chain…. Mine snapped after two miles too. Fine ever since though after the kindly chap at Kirroughtree put in an sram link (and it’s taken a fair battering). Mine was built up by the York shop – all I did was turn the stem upside down and shoogle the headset spacers about until it felt comfy. I’ve had various bits off for quick fettling, and they’ve all been well greased (where they should be).

Also, replaced the tyres for bigger, spongier jobs and didn’t even take the pedals out of the shop :D Changed the seatpost clamp for a QR job and got rid of the fugly grips too.

Quick edit: I’ve never come accross any real bike-snobbery whilst out and about – most folk are just curious to see this suspect bike which has been getting (well deserved) rave reviews. Then they pick it up and whistle…

Vintage V300 – just over your budget. “This award winning guitar was voted as the best acoustic guitar under £1000 by ‘Guitar Magazine’.”

Quote taken from HERE.

My wife bought me one for my Birthday a year and a bit ago, and I can honestly say it’s as good as anything I’ve ever played (and I’ve been playing for over 20 years, on a huge variety of gear). Only small niggle is that it’s a bit quieter than larger bodied guitars – it’s quite dinky.

This one, strangely – but then I’ve not very many photos on flickr….

Yes, there is a far right Scottish movement, but if it’s the one I’m thinking of, they are almost purely anti-English and spend their time spray painting slogans on holiday cottages – very similar to the Welsh lot who have the same M.O.

They are generally regarded (certainly by me!) as a slightly comedic bunch with no credibility.

In both the Scottish and Welsh cases, I suspect the groups have formed due to huge hikes in house prices, forcing young locals to relocate. It’s exactly these small, very localised ‘beefs’ which are picked up on and exploited by the likes of the BNP.

Fully agree that to compare the SNP with the BNP is plain stupid.

The Electrolux ‘Red’ boasts a massive hose (phwoooaar) which will clean a full flight of stairs.

We got given one for a wedding pressie (Lewis’s) and it’s a bagless job. It’s very, very noisy, but very powerful. And it does indeed hoover a full flight of stairs.

Well Mrs Removed recently bought a womens’ (woman’s?!) specific Carrera off-the-shelf for around £330. It’s the Kraken. It’s not a bad bike, and the bits are mainly alrightish, but by thunder it weighs a bit…. Certainly well over 25lb! Most of the excess weight is, I suspect, in the massive and truly awful Suntour fork – I’m at her to spend a bit of cash and replace it with, well, almost anything else!

Also, doesn’t look nearly as nice as yours! Cheers for headset advice in the other thread also.

Ah! Nightmare :( I guess Halfords is the way forwards…..

Hope you manage to get one sourced – I suspect I’ll be heading there myself at some point – perhaps Carreras are limited to Halford’s own headsets (shudders..).

How do you crucify a spastic?

On a swastika.

Now that’s offensive….

There’s a similar scheme up and running on Digital Wedding Forum (DWF) where I spend a fair bit of time, but it’s run by the owners of the site.

They’ll stick up a thread along the lines of; Group Buy, Fannytastic Albums!! First 20 to apply get a great discount!

Seems to work well for them – the suppliers get a big sale, the site gets traffic and presumably some kind of reward for hosting the offer, and the buyers get cheap goods.

Bagsy not volunteering to run it here though.

My saddle came off my Pro hardtail after the first ride. Light it may be, but it was like sitting on a plank. Might have something to do with the fact that I was used to full suss at that point, but comfort comes first, when you get to my age :-)

Good man tinsy – bike now back in one piece – I shall await with baited breath!

Good news is that I just managed to get a Strong-Lite, 1″ threaded headset for the Kona on ebay for £14 posted. Result!

Anyone want to buy a 1&1,8th FSA headset in red?

Hmmm – now I’m not as sure as I was…. Yes, there are in fact no cups as such – there are just two identical races which IIRC, do indeed run directly onto the frame.

They do however, look exactly like the ones linked to.

If that wasn’t enough, I just noticed that the plastic bits of my ’91 Hahanna headset are all cracked – I probably did it myself when re-greasing the bearings last month (and if that wasn’t enough, there’s still loads of play, so it all needs to come out and have new bearings fitted….).

Tinsy – tip-top, cheers – that looks like the very fellow. Why am I typing in the manner of the Great Gatsby? Nae clue.

Anyhoo, thanks to all for tips and advice – much appreciated.

Just back from Wiki :-) and it looks like it’s ‘semi-integrated’ or internal (same thing apparently).

Tinsy – did you manage to get a headset sorted?