OP – a 10-20mm Sigma isn’t a want, it’s a necessity. A tripod is an absolut basic – like breathing. Go spend some cash.

Personally, I’d quite like a shiny new car to make my clients think I’m a success (I am, but I like my old, rusty Focus estate – it’ll swallow bikes and it’s already so manky I really don’t care if they’re covered in dog poo).

No interest at all in watches or yachts.

deadlydarcy – Member
Watched it this evening too. Tbh, I found any of their logic and rationale just plain difficult to understand.

It’s illogical. It’s faith based. You cannot argue with someone who is utterly, blindy in thrall to a set of beliefs which puts them at odds with the rest of the race.

The most telling parts of that documentary were those in which members of the public enter into angry dialogue with the family. They invariably lose and walk off, red faced and frustrated. Our belief system ( I mean most ordinary STWers / humans, if such a group exists) relies on logic and hopefully a sense of fair play. Logic is an unmoveable object. Faith is an unstoppable force. Louis is a mere catalyst.

The only time I nearly had my head run over by a car, I was so embarassed about falling off that I just closed my eyes and waited, my legs and arms tangled through my frame, immobile. It missed by milimeters.

Also fell about 80 feet out of a tree and bounced (back to health eventually). In fact, over the many years of scrapes and NDEs (near death experiences!) I don’t think I’ve ever felt anything like the OP describes. I also heartily recommend a stiff drink or ten.

Managed to miss the OP – had a grand old walk round Allendale though (albeit with a bunch of folk who turned out to be affiliated with an odd church, though to their credit, they didn’t try to ‘turn’ us).

That said, please do feel free to PM me for the next ride – I’ve been off the tabs for a couple of months and all my riding mates have gone out and bought road bikes – sick of solo, local loops 🙁

Tea in favourite mug, sod the biccies, having a bacon sarnie. For free you say?

Some proper horror stories on this thread. OP – that does sound nasty, but nothing beats unclagging drains.

Our toilet started backing up (rented house, years ago) and the back yard began filling with sewage. Phoned the landlord and his wife told me to come round and borrow their telescopic unclagging rod thing.

I lifted a manhole cover in the back yard and was faced with a two metre deep pool of raw sewage. I was instantly and wretchedly sick, which only made things worse, as I now had to kneel in the pool of sick to get near the pool of shite.

Half an hour of ramming this pole up the drain running toward the house passed before it dawned on me that the blockage might be in the drain running away from the house. By this time I had nothing left to puke (it was a very hot Summers’ day). My method was; run out into the back lane, take a deep breath, run back in and shove the pole in, run out of air, take a deep breath, retch bile into the very pool I sought to diminish, repeat ad nauseum (literally).

Finally, the reason behind the blockage became clear – it seems it’s common practice round these parts to place a roof tile over the entrance to the main sewer system to stop rats jumping out of your toilet. The tile had slipped and completely blocked the outflow.

Took weeks for the stench to clear and my mind has never been right since.

Nearest book (The Scottish Clans and their Tartans, 1928), p.55, 5th line;

“We had it from a lady of rank who has still in her possesion a silk scarf (or plaid) of it, which was manufactured in 1712 for a lady who was a most zealous Jacobite”

Oh Crapola! Wrong page 😀

Three and a half 😀

Rigid, retro Kona set up as tourer, SS canondale and Boardman Pro HT.

Oh and the half is the unicycle.

philconsequence – that wasn’t perchance an opera singer’s body was it? Costa Del Sol murders with links to Aberdeen? If not, not to worry – just that I grew up playing with a lad whose dad eventually killed his wife, chopped her up and left her in several wheelie bins – can’t imagine it’s a very regular occurence….

I taught my mate how to shoplift and he got arrested trying to steal a 12 pack of Walkers’ crips. I am a bad teacher.

30″?! That can’t be healthy -move less!

Damn. Sorry for your trouble.

Ah! That’s the kind of thing I was looking for, ta!

Cheers for responses. The worst offenders seem to be legit retailers – big companies. Think phoning them probably is the way forward but I really begrudge paying the 0845 tarrifs to do so. I don’t doubt there’ll be a 15 minute, multiple choice, tension-headache-inducing nightmare wait to actually speak to a sub-human drone. [meldrew mode off].

TandemJeremy – Member
Is “horrorshow” from clockwork orange not used to describe something they liked?

Yes, but they liked some pretty awful stuff to be fair.

And Tucker, I always thought that the stress in the word ‘controversy’ could go on either the first or second syllable.

Just as an aside, my wife is a speech therapist and she never tries to stop patients from using colloquialisms, or using local words / pronunciations.

Played guitar and harp (mooth organ) in several semi-serious bands over the years but now just turn up for the odd buskers’ night. Wee bit of tin whistle and remnants of classical training in fiddle…

Jaws harp is not an instrument 🙂 ^^^

Badgers are protected so highly due to badger baiting in the 1970s but this barbaric sport would not come back even if badgers were less protected as its a demographic trend past its day. Why are badgers as protected as Golden Eagles, Ospreys or Otters? Bonkers.

I might still be living in the 70s then. Badger baiting well and truly alive in the NE of England. Every set I walk past with the dog is dug out. Very sad.

I’d love to do a guided tour of the local sets but I daren’t – too many lads in camo would turn up with spades and 70s attitudes.

The Kielder 100 – I can’t seem to buy a place! I go to the sip-events site, follow the link to the xcracer site and go round in circles 🙁 Am I being daft?

That there Glen Brittle is good riding too, when combined with a pootle in the forest.

Linky thing

I use one on a D300. Used to get real pain in my right wrist after a day of shooting at weddings, where perhaps a third of all the shots were portrait orientation. The grip just means a much more natural shooting position.

And yes, the increased fps rate comes in handy for shooting dogs / bikes at high speed!

Och, I do it all the time – it’s nowhere near as dangerous as they’d have you believe. It’s nice to sit down the pub, enjoying some good craic, but, equally, there are times when you just want to get quietly sozzled without the noise and bother*

*disclaimer – last week I had five days off the booze, just to make sure I still could!*

Aye it is, but blog copy and pastes don’t seem to think that paragraphs are important 😆

I’ve done the WHW twice – in fact we’re doing it again this year. You absolutely do not need any special training – just a pair of well fitting trainers / boots.

The Loch Lomond section is one of the best bits of the walk – never tried the ferry but it’s un-manly, so just don’t 🙂

Do do Conic Hill – adds a lot to the experience if you get a decent day with good views.

My whole life is a series of high pressure interviews – I’m a self-employed wedding photographer. Every single time I go out to see prospective clients, I’m in an interview situation.

90% of them book, based soley (I think) on the fact that I don’t have two heads… And I reckon I take a decent picture, which helps 🙂

Fabulous Photographer: Emerson Photography

*shameless self promotion – sorry mods*

That looks lovely 🙂 sfb’s bumshots are better though….

Yes! As a wee skinny lad, moving from a very soft, progressive school in Edinburgh , to a hard school in Aberdeen in primary seven, I was forced to defend my good looks from my classmates’ fists.

Moved up to secondary school with no network and got bits kicked out of me. The new school was utilitarian and full of loose, football-affiliated gangs. I had absolutely no interest in wendyball.

Eventually, my folks made me take up karate – think they wre fed up of taking me to A&E. And by Thor, I was surprised to find it worked!

Only had two run-ins and suddenly they went elsewhere for their kicks, literally.

Got a bullied child? Don’t go bothering the teachers, teach them how to box / kick / nuke from orbit.

druidh – Member

….they are turning over almost £2.5M per week – and a profit of 10% of that. Do you really expect them to turn off that tap while they resolve the situation?

Sorry, but yes. Definitively yes. If I knew that my online payments were being regularly and massively comprimised, I’d inform each and every client and keep them updated on the situation.

The very second your clients lose faith in your ability to operate in a transparent and honest fashion, your clients will go elsewhere – as has been evidenced in many of the posts above.

I cannot fathom why any business, gargantuan or tiny would choose to hang a “Business as Usual” sign over a disaster like this.

Mortgage free property? Have it! Repairs surely less than a couple of years of rent money?

Can’t you just move everything a tiny bit into the middle of the bars? Am I missing something?

+1 for the long lens and stakeout idea. You may end up having to wee in your own shoes though, if it goes on for a while….

Oh God – I hate all this stuff. Chances are you’re on a hiding to nothing. In my bitter experience (over 700 transactions) the buyer is always right and the seller has his account frozen. It’s better now than it used to be, but when you’re dealing with a loonie, or a pugnacious foreign type with bad English, it becomes almost impossible. 🙁

Having bought and sold a fair few zippos (user rather than collector), I would hazzard a gues that they’re worth about £5 – £10 each on a good day. Very, very common. Sorry!

Here’s a small selection of my camera gear – or the analogue stuff at least…. The 2nd drwer down, you can just see my 120 TLR Rollei – lovely square negs / slides.

Very jealous of that Contax ^^^

Enjoyed that – especially the very high speed fettling at the end 🙂

Where’s that headcam footage taken? The swoopy, bermy stuff toward the end. Looks like a lot of fun.

yunki – Member
big hoofin great spiky ones.. with teeth

Could be a kids’ face next time 😈

Just as an aside, be aware that Halfords won’t let you ‘test-drive’ the bike. They’ll let you pick it up, stand over it and maybe even put in a pedal stroke on the shop floor, but no chance you’ll get to take it for a spin round the car park – company policy.

EDIT: I ended up with a Boardman Pro HT due to my insurance company dealing only with Halfords. Delighted with it, two years down the line.

Most times when I turn up at my GP’s surgery, I know more about whatever ails me than my doctor does, courtesy of google. Latest example being nasal polyps. I’d already treated the condition with the meds she recommended for two weeks, so I sought a second opinion (and was cured).

I suggest you do the same; no harm done and in your case, probably a little more serious than my nose-aids.

Me and my stepdad got attacked by an large, enraged, male, nest-guarding Capercaillie up Sutherland way when I was a lad. He had to beat it off with a stick after it went for his eyes, from the vantage point of his shoulders!

Feel free to fry their eggs on a hot griddle.

Peyote – Member

I’m not sure if heroin is particularly more addictive than anything else. Indeed one of the regular lines trotted out in smoking cessation literature is that nicotine is more addictive than heroin. I’m suspicious about the accuracy of this though.

Quitting smoking / drinking could be said to be harder due partly to the socially acceptable nature of the drugs. That is, you can’t walk into a newsagent and buy smack, crack or crystal-meth. Well, not round these parts anyway…. The new legislation to hide cigarettes in shops will almost certainly help would-be non-smokers.

Also, regarding addicts “…not caring about anything else”; I’m sure that’s true of some addicts, but I refer you to my earlier post about my very caring family-man mate, running a succesful business.

And tomthumb – I personally have never met any casual smack/crack/meth users. They’ve all fallen for it eventually, or given it up just in time.

That font is really, really annoying – just doesn’t scan and hurts your eyes. Like the look of the site otherwise…

There used to be a couple of police bikers on massive MX bikes here in Sunderland. When we phoned to report local chavs on (stolen?) bikes razzing about the site, scaring kids and dogs on the footpaths, these burly police types would show up, chase them down and kick the perps off their bikes. Was awesome to watch but these days they’d probably get sued 🙁