Watching with interest. Just got a brand new Galaxy J5, all photos stored on the micro SD card, installed all apps into memory card too (as far as possible) and the internal memory is already stuffed to bursting.

Sideways-graded from a Galaxy S5 to cut the bill down a bit and am seriously unimpressed… Done all the usual stuff – cleared cache, stopped unnecessary apps etc.

“Why’s your toilet got blood in it?”

Issue 50. **** knows why.

I have a few annual photography jobs with a local council. All go through the same invoicing department. Trying to get paid is a total ballache. Every, single, time. You have to ask the department to raise a purchase order (this usually takes several times of asking and monumental amounts of confusion). Then you have to send an invoice to the department which they fail to forward to invoicing several times. Eventually you send a paper invoice direct to the invoicing department and get a bollocking because, “That’s not how the system works!”.

We all used to have foam pipe insulation taped on to our Muddy Fox Courier top tubes for this purpose :D

My mate got knocked off at a junction earlier this week and is still recovering. He shared this article and even his bloody mates started going on about road tax and “…pricks who cycle two abreast”, etc. I waded in with a swift, one paragraph rebuttal and had to turn off notifications on that post. Depressing is not the word.

I do always feel a sort of responsibility to educate but it really, really is a massive waste of time.

What P-Jay said. I went to one once and wouldn’t go back. The salesman tried to sell me a series of small hatchbacks after I told him I was after a diesel estate. Then the finance guy sat down with me and made stuff up on his calculator for a good five minutes. By that, I mean he just sat shuffling papers and hammering his calculator, talking absolute carp the whole time. None of it made any sense and he was utterly unable to explain the final calculations.

I walked and he got pretty aggressive – one particular gem was, “Oh yeah, I can see this one’s properly pussywhipped” :evil:

Interesting, ta. I still reckon you could reasonably claim that a candidate’s interpersonal skills weren’t up to scratch (or some such bollocks) and be fairly safe, providing due diligence can be shown throughout the process…

Needless to say, she’s still 100% correct.

Pffft. I’m her only slave. No P45 for me.

Fwiw I think you dealt with it the right way, i.e., didn’t put yourself in harm’s way.

This has been discussed on here before but it still looks like Portugal got it right when they decriminalised all drugs, gave hard drugs away in a controlled manner and instigated sensible programmes to give users a chance to change their futures.

Drug related crime is way down and perhaps more importantly, far, far fewer people die.

Unlike the news here in NE England this week which tells us that our fair region now has the highest drug related death toll in the UK…

I know you think you’re trying to be helpful, but you’re really not helping.

Honeybadgerx is quite right. Sectioning *is* the last resort but also the first stop in getting proper help.

One of the members of my band went through a similar experience and whilst it was horrifying at the time, it quickly became clear that he was best placed to receive the care he so desperately needed.

I so hope you’ll all come out the other side with the help you need.

How did that guy ^^^ not break his back / neck?! I remember watching the video and cringing. Or maybe he did?

Loved PP’s sage wisdom right up until the wrongness about the pies.

I completely, totally fecked it up at that age. Like your son, I was mostly well behaved, doing well at school without trying very hard and hung around with good, clever kids.

The pressure to perform, pre-exams is the only thing I can identify which set me off. And I went off like a rocket. Drugs, drink, unfortunate relationship choices.

I can only echo PP’s advice – show him where his life will take him and hope for the best.

I love my CD player. But it has a habit of swallowing CDs and refusing to eject them. Known issue with Meganes. Wasn’t too bad when it was Neil Young but I was relieved when it finally ejected The Smartest Giant in Town.

In fact, even the three year old was glad.

On the whole though, it’s Radio 4 – I look forward to the peaceful time we spend together.

The chief of police here in Durham refused to have any cameras on his patch. “Yay!” said all the drivers. Until it became clear that instead of cameras, he would hire those awful vans to hide round blind corners where the NSL went down to 40.

Just as an aside, a reel to reel recorder caused my first real bike crash. I found an old one in the bin whilst doing my morning paper round.

It fitted almost perfectly into my paper bag and I set off down Kingsgate (**** big urban hill in Aberdeen) towards home.

The whole shebang swung round just as I reached full velocity on my Claude Butler 10 speed and knocked my elbow, causing me to swing into the parked cars on my left.

Had to pretend to be dead for the first five minutes after the car owner came running out his house. He was mightily peeved.

Uhers were certainly portable – used for vox-pops and pretty much anthing outside of the studio. Perhaps guide your FIL to the minidisc thread.

Revox are the best in portable recorders. Why does he want one?

Or at the other end of the scale, Amazon sell photo backpacks with tripod attachments for about £20. I went for a LowePro 200AW because I needed to carry a lot of kit and my tripod is massive :-)

Christ n0b0dy! And Yunki, ever stopped to wonder if perhaps you are, in fact, a werewolf?

Just to be greedy, I’ll post another one. Except it wasn’t my life in danger but a friend. Three of us were cycling around The Pyrenees between France and Spain. After a few months of sharing a two man tent, one of our company had had enough and took off for a few days by himself.

The two of us noticed some castellations built into a cliff on the valley hillside on a cliff and decided to climb up and have a gander. The going went from rough to vertical and I gave voice to my misgivings. My mate was adamant that we could do it right up ’til the point he fell about six feet onto a ledge.

After that, he needed coaxed down every, single, bloody centimetre of the way; “Ok, right foot left a bit, yes it’ll hold you” kind of a thing.

At one point, he froze. His whole body was shaking so much that I didn’t believe he could hold on and rocks were raining down on my head. There was a good 200 foot drop if he let go – I was sure he would.

We did, however, get down with just cuts and bruises. Never been so scared for someone else in all my life.

I started blogging to help my businesses. Then started enjoying it. Shameless link here: http://jamiethetog.blogspot.co.uk/?m=1

Was just reading a cyclist’s blog yesterday from 2011 – a guy who rode through my dad’s garden at Saltoun Hall. Great record of the landscape. Wouldn’t be Coastkid from here would it? Pencaitland area.

Yup. About 20 years ago when I lived in Aberdeen, myself and a few friends were out on Christmas Eve for a few drinks and some food. The last chap to turn up was walking down the street waving at us as a bunch of casuals rounded the corner.

Back then, the ASC (Aberdeen Soccer Casuals) were pretty much out of control. Vicious bastards who didn’t limit their violence to after-match shenannigans. So it was no surprise to see them.

Anyway, this group of half a dozen headbutted my mate and pushed him down a long flight of stone steps. I legged it down the road and started punching. Needless to say, I hadn’t thought it through and the punches were very soon coming my way.

Incredibly, I stayed upright throughout but there was certainly a moment of, “Oh shit, this is it” as my jaw and cheekbone snapped and everything went a bit fuzzy.

Christmas dinner was liquid that year…

Our row of terraced houses is in a bit of a dip so we come close to flooding every time there’s heavy rain.

After advice from this very forum, I installed three French drains which take water away from the walls. Also fixed the leaky guttering and got a guy in to patch up the holes around the upstairs windows. No more damp!

Coconut water. **** right off.

Ah, the old saturday night palsy..

Yup, but I was told there was irreversible nerve damage. Happily, that turned out to be untrue.

What do you call a French sandal salesman?

Phillipe Phillope.

Fell asleep funny in an armchair one night and woke up with a radial nerve palsy. No right arm for the next 11 months, lost my job, had to move back home. Still got out on the bike with a home-made splint :-)

Sorted eventually with deep tissue massage and acupuncture.

Genuinely haven’t got time to read the responses but there does seem to be an assumption amongst GPs / trick cyclists that if you enjoy smoking weed you *must* have deep underlying issues.

They’ll tell you this just before going home for a G&T and half a bottle of red.

To quote Irvine Welsh (cos I’m in a rush), “The gemme’s nae straight”.

The local farmer did this to one of the nicest parts of The Weardale Way too a few years ago :-(

At the tender age of 10, my dad left me chatting to Angela Ripon (off the news) at The Usher Hall.

More recently I had to ask Mark Lanegan and his entourage to please shift out of shot whilst shooting a wedding at The Sage.

Used to sit and play with Cathal McConnell, Aly Bain et al at the impromptu sessions at the Edinburgh festival.

Oh, and went for coffee with Alan Spence (Scottish writer) in Edinburgh.

Fully appreciate most folk won’t have heard of any of the above :-)

I can still remember when they used to spray blood and offal on the fields

They still do on the farms around Consett. Fish guts seems to be the general consensus. Impossible to breathe for a few days (I’m posting from the afterlife).

No spacers required – just chuck it in there. My old Hahana has one too (not as pretty as the one up there ^^^).

**** that, kill ’em. If you can find out where they’re coming from / in, buy a bunch of slug pellets. We were plagued by them for years until my mum gave me a tub of pellets. Problem solved literally overnight.

So far, she gets basically zero screen time

Better she watches some Cbeebies than escapes her seatbelt every car trip. We gave in quite early on, especially as we do a lot of long trips to visit relatives in the far NW of Scotland – the kindle was an absolute lifesaver when the boredom kicked in. Lots of games and “jigsaws” on there too, so it’s not just mindlessly watching Fireman Sam.

Kasper on Glen Brittle Beach, Skye.

Dude, I’ve just been down the road of having to approach the housing department here in Sunderland. The only option available was a hostel which wold obvs be a total last resort.

Happily, I’ve been able to stay in the house for the time being – you know where I live and you’re more than welcome to crash here for a week or so (wife’s away on hols). Just turn up – if I’m out, I’m walking the dog and will be back in short order.

All the best.

Same technique used in Goodfellas but a bit more subtle…

Do they get you mullered? More like fruit corner…

Last time i had a hash brownie I stood looking at the corner of the room with tools in my hand for half an hour

Rubber mallet. I must have bought at least three over the last decade and always end up using a hammer and a bit of wood. Not exactly small things – very mysterious.

“Hi, I’m missing a delivery, I’ve chased it with the suppliers who’ve confirmed that it was definitely delivered here. Can I have it please?”

This seems to be the sensible option. If nothing else, it will hopefully make their heart drop into their stomach.

Some friends of mine had a case of wine delivered to them a while ago. It was left in their porch – right address on the label but they’d never heard of the addressee. So they kept it. Tut, tut. A month later, the second case arrived and this time they phoned the sender (Naked Wine’s sort of a setup) and told them.

The company told them they’d send a courier to pick it up but never did. A month later, another case turned up – so far as I know, they’ve been drinking free wine for over a year now.