Who the hell buys this stuff?

I remember a series on the telly about a CC type shop. One poor, old, down-on-his-luck, semi-alcoholic geezer who was a regular came in and dropped £500 odd on a keyboard, amp and a PA system. He went back in two days later and sold it back to them for less than half what he’d just paid for it 😕 Think he said something about the neighbours complaining…

Not a big fan of these shops – I do think they prey on those at the very bottom of the foodchain and are well known for getting ‘customers’ locked into a circle of dependancy, especially those that lend money on payday advance cheques (are there any left now?).

I love that video – just sat and watched it again. Reminds me of the way I used to treat my 531 Reynolds Claude Butler road bike like a BMX 🙂

Wet snow here in the North East of England – not lying.

Bit of a stretch here – had to walk accross a footy pitch to get this without the industrial estate on the right in 🙂 But it is the view from the bedroom window!

Since the advent of the Charge Spoon, I’ll occasionally ride without padded shorts. Anything more than a local bimble requires lycra shorts with pads.

The main reason most riders wear baggies over lycra is to minimise the ‘Oh my God – look at that’ effect.

So you’d argue against value for money when it comes to public service?

The problem is, that many working in public service are not money-motivated. They have a myriad of ‘human’ reasons for working in the jobs they do – perhaps they hold (or mostly held these days) a genuine and deep-rooted desire to ‘do the right thing’ and help out other humans.

Most would probably LOVE to give value for money, not least to safeguard their jobs but gross mis-management and shrinking funds have made this nigh on impossible in almost every sector.

Just to continue the scouts / murderers theme, my mate’s dad and my dad used to take turns running us to scouts. When it was my mate’s dad’s turn, he’d give his ten year old son the car keys and send him off to get the car out of the garage, drive it down the back lane and up the front of the street to the house!

On the way to scouts he’d regale us with tales of his scouting days, which mostly seemed to consist of forcing other kids to eat various horrible things (small dead animals, whole boxes of matches and the like). Even as a kid I knew something wasn’t right with him.

About ten years later, he strangled his wife in the Costa del Sol, chopped her into little pieces and dumped her in various bins. He got caught and so far as I know is still in prison.

Something like this maybe? 20 cl bottles of Cragganmore…

Please take my advice,
Open up the tired eyes…

Seems to me the only object to a resolution is Realman’s concern about the brakes now not working after jimmy fettled them. Are they now non-operational jimmy? If they are still in the same (working) condition as they were received, can’t you guys just sort it out? Any number on here would be happy to arbitrate (me included).

SSssshhhhh!

+1 for a Deuter. I had a Mule, but got frustrated by the fact that once my camera (with a small prime lens attached) was in there, I could barely get anything else in it. The Deuter is comparitively massive – swallows tools, jacket, lunch and whatever else I might need. It has a helmet net which stows away when not needed, and the waterproof cover doubles up as a seat when the ground’s wet.

Mine’s getting on for two years old now (at least) and still going strong. It’s also very, very comfortable.

I’m Avid about holidays – well we all need a brake don’t we? I do Hope I don’t Tektro many holidays though.

Yay! Congrats to both of you! Can’t really help with the venue but could cut you a deal for your photography 🙂

Haven’t used gripshift since I had XRays on a rigid Orange Clockwork! Liked them a lot, but IIRC it was a pain in the neck to change the gear cable – lots of winding the cable round in an intricate fashion, only to completely forget how to do it six months later.

Are they any easier now? Or was (am) I just a cack-handed numpty?

As above, my folks have two large multifuel stoves in their house, and also have three self catering cottages each of which has its own small miltifuel stove. They get all their wood delivered in huge logs from the FC. It gets chainsawed into manageable lengths, sawed into roundels and then split with a hydraulic splitter (essential for speedy splitting!).

AlexSimon – Member
Another good thing to do, would be to volunteer as a Photographer’s Assistant with someone locally whose work you admire/respect.

They may not take you on (especially for a wedding), but if they do, the experience would be incredibly valuable.

Sound advice, but don’t ask local photographers – go further afield – be prepared to travel. You’ll find that strangely enough, the local pros have no desire to train their future competition…

I get at least one email a fortnight from would-be photographers, asking if I’m looking for an assistant. I (almost) always reply with the same advice and a warning that payment is very unlikely to be involved even if they can find someone to take them under their wing.

SkillWill, I’ll paypal you £3 for one of those posted 🙂

I hate witch hunts, but,

pitduck – Member
pay up

+1.

Onto the 2nd page and no mention of degloving?! If you use your hands, avoid hard metals, partly to avoid being hung upside down by the skeletal remains of your finger, and partly because (as was mentioned on page one) your fingers will change shape over the years and you’ll eventually be likely to need to add / remove metal.

I wore silver rings throughout my teens and constantly snapped or deformed rings ‘just riding along’… My white gold wedding ring is still perfectly circular.

Yup, saw that set of photos and had a wee smile – got the same one somewhere. Organised a four day photographers’ meet up there a few years back and the end of the loch was the preferred spot for a wee fire and a few beers at the end of a long day’s landscape photography!

Also had my stag do there the year before 🙂

Still tortoise; so you’d be perfectly happy to have a beginner turn up at your wedding, your one off big day, cock it up right royally, leave your new wife in tears and charge you for the privilege? Would you just say, “oh well, at least he tried”? And 4Xjohn – again, good on you for giving it a go, but why not start with work which can be recreated when everything goes tits up?

Pretty sure it’s not a troll and I echo the ‘well-done-for-getting-off-your-arse’ comments, BUT; advertising your services for weddings, where there’s just ONE chance to get it right, with a portfolio like that is just asking for trouble. Cock up a commercial job and the only thing on the line is your reputation.

I’d advise knowing your onions very thoroughly before going anywhere near a wedding. Cock it up and you will have ruined the biggest day in some young couples lives. ‘Nuff said.

Speech and language therapists and other notionally non-critical health professionals are being squeezed very, very hard just now (wife is one). Midwifery probably a safer bet…

Ha! Just waiting for Cougar to finish posting, then he’s very generously going to offer some remote assistance to my ailing machine (no, really)!

Hope I can return the favour at some point, somehow!

Rescue dogs need a LOT of time, effort and love. Almost as much as a baby! One of the comments I made to my wife after the first few weeks of our rescue lurcher coming home was, “Jesus ******* Christ! At least babies sleep sometimes!”. He howled all night, every night for nigh on a month, sh@t everywhere and flailed about in it and couldn’t be left for more than five minutes without becoming distressed and panicked.

There’s absolutely no way I’d introduce a fully grown animal with an unknown history to a household with a small child.

Better to buy a puppy and have it grow up in the company of the baby.

Interesting. Also, saw THIS at the bottom of the page – basically an engine you can strap onto your bike – looks terrifying!

Can someone remind me how to get at the system info please? I have always meant to upgrade the RAM – don’t remember it being particularly impressive when I bought the computer…

This one on the laptop – did a photoshoot with this dog just before Christmas but actually not sure why I have it as a BG pic!

And this one on the desktop – taken last September on Skye – reminds me to go visit my parents as soon as possible.

Cheers Cougar – if you email me your number and let me know a good time to call, I’d really appreciate that! I’m at info[AT]emerson photographyDOTco.uk

There’s a bike shop in Portree – only been in once to hire bikes for me and a few friends – the hire bikes were awful, but I’m told they’ve bought a new fleet now. Portree also has at least one outdoorsy type shop. There’s another, very exclusive and expensive in in Struan – never been in it though. Worth Googling Skye MTB – shows lots of threads mostly on here pertaining to routes.

Cheers Matt – will try googling a few of them. Just by the by, what does Microsoft Silverlight actually do? Would love to scrap it as it’s huge!

Drac – yes that did cross my mind – will just have to remember to take Adobe off the list when updating software and so on. Really, really can’t be bothered doing the whole re-install thing, ‘cos I’ve got so much processing to do!

Have just optimised the catalogue in Lightroom, and that does seem to have made a big difference. Thanks for all the help.

Not Vista.

Thanks PJay – yes I’ve just checked, and you’re quite right, there is, so I’ve excluded any Adobe files and ‘My Pictures’. Will see if that makes a difference.

Could be – I’m using MSE. I can’t see any obvious settings in there for stopping it inspecting images, but have just turned off “scan outgoing files”…

Yup – email arrived here this morning too, offering 10% disco. They can stick it. This form of ‘suck-’em-in’ marketing is a massive turn off. Boycott is now in place permanently.

andyl – yes it’s a bit of a dream job, but it’s also very sporadic. Some jobs involve living in a tent for a few weeks – you need 50 miles clear visibility and after a 12 mile walk in before you get to the bottom of a summit, you don’t want to head back, knowing you’ve got to do the same thing the next day if the weather clears up – you also only get paid for the viewpoints you photograph, so whole days go by with no pay.

The last few jobs have been a bit more civilised; self catering cottages (dog friendly) and hotels. All expenses are paid for too, but it does get wearing being away from home for so long with often just the dog for company for days on end!

Going to try getting into it properly this year – love shooting weddings but would always rather be mooching about in the mountains 🙂

Cheers for the jokes chaps – after a good look around, I’m wondering if they’re all much of a muchness?