Yes, a well balanced, happy person who has had a pleasant journey to work will be more productive and able to go home ten minutes earlier and further the cause of the human race and the planet we live on. I can see that.

No-one here is entirely selfless – as I said earlier, I make my living through shifting large amounts of gear from one place to another in an old, exhaust-spewing car. I have to – it puts food on the table.

May I ask why it took you 20 years to decide to have a car (no assumptions here about your changing circumstances and it was never meant to get personal – I treat all arguments on the internet as a discussion with a computer)?

CK – it’s still all about you, your wallet and your convenience – I suspect this is due to teh internets. I honestly don’t care whether or not driving / trains are a slight inconvenience to you or not (I’m really, really trying hard not to say, “See the bigger picture here”).

Tracker – I agree that we’re all on a budget, 100% of the time, and that as humans, we are predisposed to wring every last drop out of our resources, be they our fields, our wallets or (bigger picture) our descendants’ future. And again, good on you for getting your leg over (the bike).

EDIT – and CK, how do you think trains will become uncrowded, comfy places for you to have a relaxed chat on your way to work? Bingo – use them, ply them with money…

Out in the rural idyll, or the blasted mountainous wildernesses, I would always expect to exchange pleasantries with any other soul; two wheels, four legs or on foot. It’s interesting that as you get closer to ‘casual walking distance’ of a population centre, there’s an unwritten rule that these greetings cease.

On a sunny day, a smile is the very least one should expect – we are all revelling in the unusual phenomenon of feeling warm. On an overcast day, a glance or just a nod should suffice.

EDIT – jools said all that without the flowery language ^^^

I understand both sides, but CK, you are missing the point here (wilfully I reckon). It’s NOT about the cost to you personally, although I also understand that you’re fighting a corner you’ve been forced into…

The OP’s point was that many of the car journeys undertaken on our roads could be replaced with other means of transport – it’s not a wishy-washy utopian dream; it could very easily be a reality if more people like you (and me) actively sought to promote public transport. The first step is to use it, no matter how shonky it is.

Wouldn’t you be happier relaxing on a comfortable train to work?

EDIT: and good on ya for car sharing – it’s a start….

McHamish – Member
It costs £250 plus to travel from London Euston to Wilmslow and back in peak times. How much would it cost to drive?

The Earth?

Sorry to get all Friends of the Earth on you, but there is some truth in it…. Not a militant anti-car type and I use my car every weekend for weddings and to travel between clients (with big bags of photo kit) but cycle where possible and would love to see the public transport infrastructure upgraded to the point where it’s a genuinely viable alternative – Godammit, I’d pay 50% tax to have a decent NHS and public transport system – should I move to Switzerland?! Or is it Sweden… Can never remember!

If you can afford to wait for a few months, just cover the whole area with a few big tarps. No light = no weeds (or grass or anything else….).

A bluebell near Durham yesterday.

And a few other plants sneaked into my camera too….

Sorry for the cheating…. 😳

It’s a new bike rack.

Cramond Island? Guaranteed to have it to yourself too, once the tide comes in 🙂

5th – nooo! Most buggers will just return for a full refund after having used your item FOC for a month. TJ’s suggestion of having him return just the shock is slightly less risky….

Was it was sold, ‘as seen’? Did you mention that the shock was un unknown factor? If so, definitely just a polite rebuffal. If you’ve still got the emails in which he sings the frame’s praises, all the better if it comes to a dispute.

Disputes are a massive PITA though (I must have had six or seven over 700+ transactions). Sometimes it’s better to just cough up and get the troublesome twunts out of your life. Paypal may freeze your paypal account or withdraw the amount paid for the frame whilst they investigate. If you haven’t got any cash in the account, this gives you a negative balance and they are really unpleasant to you when you’re ‘overdrawn’ – constant harrasment to settle the overdue balance.

So on the whole, perhaps offer £50 to get shot 🙁

EDIT; I’ve just ahd to refund some newbie £160 because the camera ‘didn’t suit’ him 👿 Like I say, sometimes it’s just easier…

Coem with Apollo in bridal dress

Doesn’t matter how you dress it up – it’s still a Halfords BSO.

Cheers Monk – will be sure to do that. Loving the blog by the way!

Ah! Have already read that, but forgot about the pertinent detail, thanks! Off for another read….

I think I’ll just kick back and quaff a bit of the Beaujolais nouveau ’76 I’ve had knocking around.

PONCE FAIL

Doubly so I’m afraid – Beaujolais Nouveau wants drinking straight away – doesn’t take kindly to being stored for more than a year [/ex-off-licence-manager mode off].

Edit – beaten to the rum punch again 🙁

Ah that is ringing a bell – wasn’t it basically a very long picture rather than a website?

I think it was This One.[/url]

Apparently it started off as an eviction

Well, Tescos someone wasn’t happy with a squat full of Tesco demonstrators in the immediate locality, and tipped off the cops that the place was full of petrol bombs (totally unconfirmed as yet), so the police turned up to check it out.

I’m a small business owner 😀

But I don’t have a shop front and noticed the way our high streets were changing long before I read any Bill Bryson… Also accepted it though – I often get bottles of cheap wine from Tescos 😳

Oh wait – you’ve edited your post kevevs – and I’ve no idea what it means?! And it makes my reply look nonsensical too 🙁

I only dislike them for the same reasons as Bill Bryson dislikes them – the ongoing homogenisation of every village, town and city in the country – I like to see small businesses doing well, quite apart from the aesthetic effect on our high streets.

In the case above, the local residents just didn’t want their street to look the same as every other. In the short clip I saw on the news, it looked like there were a good few independent, small shops and businesses in the street, with all the quirks and character you’d expect and hope for.

Sarah Rainsford (journalist who wrote the piece) needs to sort out her PR photo – it’s horrendous! She looks like she’s about to puke – maybe it was taken shortly after she covered the story?

Juicy 7s never worked properly out of the box. Problem compounded by taking bike to LBS for bleeding – happens to be Halfords. The ‘mechanic’ managed to; a) destroy the two-stage braking action on the levers, and b) not bleed the brakes.

Still unable to rectify the lever problem but bought an ebay kit and brakes are now rock solid. Haven’t been near them for over a year now – as my dad says, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

May I just say, without getting all ghey, that this forum doesn’t appreciate TJ’s input enough – real world experience, backed up with know how (and in this case, pictures!).

And to the OP, I remember a ride many moons ago in the Aberdeenshire rural idyll, where a mate kept disappearing over the edge of every corner we went round. I remembered an article I’d read in MBUK about cornering – the journalist recommended ‘rag-dolling’ it round corners – getting the weight over the BB and just relaxing; tensing up is not conducive to getting round bends / berms. I gave my mate a quick synopsis of the article. After a quick hissy fit, the rider in question was flying round the corners.

So make like a floppy doll – keep the weight on the BB, and look well ahaead! All the advice above is also very valid.

Mine was done spur of the moment. Feel utterly ambivalent about it now – forget it’s there ’til someone says, “I didn’t know you had ink”.

It’s neither good nor bad – celtic cross type thing – when I do catch sight of it in the mirror now, it reminds me that I’m an exile waiting to go back home 🙂

EDIT; oh and that design at the top of the page is pretty nasty – if I were going to get a bike-related tat, it would be that oily mark you get on your calf, when half the chainring bounces of your leg and leaves a greasy imprint. In fact, the only reason I haven’t had it done is that my calves are nothing to write home about. Why are our leg muscles named after bovine quadrapeds anyway?

Right – this is a bit sad, but I’ve just gone and dug out, and photographed my old Cubs jumper – my folks found it when they moved house five or so years ago, and took great delight in presenting me with it, along with the benefit of their witty comments…

As you can see, I was a sixer, so don’t take the p1ss or I’ll make you run round the hall five times.

Ah yes, the memories flood back, a tide of slightly hazy, tampon-infested sewage…..

Waaaaay back in the 90s, a couple called Gav and Fat Nicky (she was a girl…just) used to organise parties in the middle of nowhere. They had a generator, a sound system and big bags of interesting drugs.

Needless to say, they also had a decent following, and on this particular night, the word went out that there was to be a full on rave in the Forest of Skene, not far out of Aberdeen. So me and a rag-taggle bunch got in somone’s Transit and left the safety of the pub for some high times, stopping only to hit the off license for whisky.

We found the place eventually and immediately scored as much as we could. The haul included several wraps of dried mushies, some strawberries (acid tabs) and a few wraps of quality speed. The music was loud enough to deaden the sound of the generator and we got down to some serious dancing.

At about two in the morning, some bright spark announced that it was skinny-dipping time – the Loch of Skene couldn’t be far away, could it? But it was, and the forty or so intrepid souls who came along soon got horribly lost. I volunteered to climb a tree, to see if I could see the loch from atop the canopy. I picked the tallest Douglas Fir in the woods and swarmed up it, with the magical ninja skills bestowed on drunk, tripping, speeding people (I was a bottle of Jack down at this point, along with the mushies, speed and acid).

Sure enough! The loch was visible, sparkling in the moonlight and immensely appealing. I looked down to tell everyone that I could see it, but all that came out was, “Wow! You all look like ants!”, before the branch snapped and I began my journey back to terra fima.

I have since been back to look at this tree – easily found as it pokes 20 odd feet above the rest, and I’d guess it’s about 80-100 feet tall. Fortunately, I hit almost every branch on the way down, but still managed to split my head open, pull every ligament in my body and fracture three ribs. All the other tripping people ran away (don’t blame them) which left two strangers to drag me back to the party. Managed to play a gig the next night but spent the next couple of months on crutches.

Will listen to that later – ta!

I’m a geezer!

Christ – thought I was quite hardcore in my callow youth, but reading some of these makes me feel like a proper lightweight….

Ah go on, I’ll spin one yarn then 😀

I’d just finished college in Edinburgh as a mature student (28 years young) and my mates came to visit from Aberdeen. At the time, I was living in one of those tiny caravans in my Dad’s garden. We all squeezed in and proceeded to get violently drunk – fortunately the booze was tempered by copious amounts of good quality hashish.

At about three in the morning, we had all but run out of booze – I remembered at this point that my Dad had several cases of Morgan Spiced rum left over from a bash some years before. So we necked a goodly amount of that.

Upon waking the next morning, Julian (the sensible one) drunkenly announced that he had to drive back to Aberdeen, and that Mike (not sensible) had to come now if he wanted a lift.

We persuaded him he needed a decent breakfast and got him to drive us to Stockbridge in his vile old BMW (he smoked. A lot. With the windows closed – the passenger footwell was a foot deep in fag ash). As we approached our destination, Mike found a tub of ‘Barkeeps’ Friend’ – a white, powdered scouring agents used by, well, barmen I suppose. He sprinkled an ounce or so on me, I threw water over hime and the battle was on.

Julian wasn’t at all amused and pulled an emergency stop outside the pub. Mike and I fell out of the car coated from head to foot in white powder and Evian. Passers by actually jumped back! The car looked like an explosion in a coke factory. We went for brunch nonetheless with Julian muttering darkly. After several very large bloody maries, Mike decided to stay another night and Julian got into his precious car and buggered off back to Aberdeen.

Me and Mike went for a post-brunch spliff by the canal, started fighting again and both fell off a 12 foot drop into the water. At least it washed off the Barkeeps’ Friend. We kept this stupid shite up all day – at one point we went to a cash machine – I pushed Mike out the way in the middle of his transaction and withdrew £250 from his account – it was gone in two hours. We returned home only when no bars would serve us. I fell down the railway embankment (may have been pushed) fell through a bush and landed heavily on the pavement – I had no shoes or shirt. Sadly, I looked straight up into the faces of my Dad and his wife, walking their dinner guests home.

The next morning, I was supposed to meet my girlfriend in Newcastle and go to a University interview at 2p.m. Didn’t wake up ’til 3p.m. Although my life wasn’t over, it certainly felt like it for a few days…

Crankboy – I thought the current thinking was not to suffocate them with vaseline / toothpast / whatever or burn them with matches / cigarettes. The tic will regurgitate the contents of its guts back into you and give you all its nasty diseases. The last tic thread saw a huge rush on tic removing tweezers – definitely the best method!

Pulled this evil wee bugger off my dog’s face last year – it made him really lethargic, he was off his food and generally very unwell, poor chap. It was hiding under his fur, quite near his eye!

I’ve had hundreds of ticks over the years – it’s par for the course if you spend a lot of time walking / riding in bracken / near sheep. Never really worried about it, even when my Uncle got Lymes Disease – they caught it after a few months and he made a full recovery.

10 – we’re not allowed to watch that vid because of our location (here in the UK 🙁 )

geoffj – Member

I would say that was a cracking little video – well done.

+1

+1

And for all those of us who fell for the knockoff MUVI cameras which were doing the rounds of the forums last year, and who subsequently discovered that the compact cameras we already had, with built in vibration reduction were infinitely superior; I bring you The handlebar mount with ball-head

Just ordered one a few days ago – will certainly report back…

A sample of the Gravediggaz… Hilarious, but so very good 😀

You’ll have to imagine the massive bass unless you’re listening on a decent system.

Oh! And it gets better!

Haven’t seen DJ Shadow mentioned yet, but he’s more about the decks than the rap…. Bit of Peanutbutter Wolf is good. For full on comedy hardcore, you can’t go wrong with The Gravediggaz (featuring Rza of Wu-Tang fame). Failing all that, hit up a bit of Ice Cube.

Looks grand – great report and nice pics. You’ve just inspired me to change August’s holiday plans from Sutherland to Pitlochry / Kinloch Rannoch. Emails flying now…

theginjaninja – Member
That first one of the dog is superb! Less keen on the watermark though.

Cheers ninja – the watermark’s the only way to stop folk pinching the pics – I’ve found mine being used for profit before, without permission…

Loving the shapes and angles in that 2nd pic ^^^ Have you tried it in B+W?

The AK47, the M16 (all models) and the SA80 all have the inherent flaw of killing people….

Love it! Shared to Facebook!

MT Graham – I was thinking just that whilst out with the dog the other day. Ended up going well ‘off-piste’

Happy trails pics

Despite being on foot, I spent most of the time linking up bits of known and previously unknown tracks in my head until I had a nice 20 mile blast put together.