I’ll do you a massive discount on wedding photography IF you get married on a tandem / any other BSO.

Joking apart ( I wasn’t, and I will) I very nearly married a lovely American girl when her student visa ran out many years ago – she’s now happily married to someone else, as am I.

Sorry, not helpful (unless you get married on a tandem).

Bit late in the year, but the biggest magic mushrooms I’ve ever seen grow all round the Stones of Stenness in Orkney. Yummy.

I’m back on the blooming things again. Gave up for four months over Summer, then had a week in Italy, sitting outside bars / cafes in the sunshine surrounded by beautiful Italians enjoying lovely tabs.

So I started again. Will be having another go very soon – mostly for the sake of peace and quiet from Mrs Removed – very aware that this isn’t a good reason to quit but it’s as good as any other….

Not a fan of ‘straights’ – always rolled my own (another Drum smoker).

Bah!

Walked out to Sandwood Bay last April. There was a couple doing it on a tandem made out of scaffolding poles but they were defeated by sandiness.

There is a Spar type shop in Scourie.

Wild camping – pretty much anywhere really!

I’m guessing some emails are flying as we type…..

EDIT; seems STW has made up its mind, but given that I have espoused the feasibility of traditional Chinese medicine more than once on this forum, I feel honour bound to add that there are more things in Heaven and Earth, etc, etc.

When I bought my Focus estate, I went on ebay and found a massive bolt of darkroom cloth.

It adapts to the shape of the boot – all seats down, two bikes and the dog and it extends all the way from the boot door to the front seats, doubled up.

Back seats in ‘normal’ position and dog in boot, the cloth folds up to keep the mud off the carpet.

Cost me £20 + £8 delivery.

Portable drives are very good – why the lack of confidence? I used a Jobo Giga One on a recent trip to SA. It’s tiny, costs comparitively very little, internal, rechargeable battery lasts months and so far it’s behaved perfectly.

Quite sure more modern devices are even more stable / reliable. If I was buying another, I’d get one with a wee screen, so I could see the uploaded pics.

Just the speshes on bikes here in the NE.

I do remember when I lived in Ediburgh, there was a problem with chavs razzing up and down the old railway line behind my house, on stolen motorbikes.

So…. they issued the poor cops with ELECTRIC BIKES to help catch them. Beggars belief but it’s 100% trye!

Insurance job tbqfh

Exactly what I thought as soon as I saw the photo. My next door neighbour’s toddling daughter spilt a very small amount of white gloss on their carpet by pulling the brush from the pot.

He dipped her hands and shoes in the pot and made her crawl around the house a few times till every carpet was mangled and then claimed on insurance – the carpets were all done in through wear and tear anyway – chancing barsteward (will that get me done for trying to avoid the filter?!).

Public sector just as bad. I’m just at the point of getting out of my part time play-job (I run a small business but kept on my student job to get me out of the house and speaking to people!).

It’s a council run facility – a public service rather than a profit making business. Recently though, a trouble-shooter was brought in to rouse the troops. The initial meeting made it clear that if any staff weren’t willing to play by the new rules, they might as well walk there and then, because otherwise they’d be found out and squeezed out of a job.

The workplace is now really unpleasant – the middle-management (twatts at the best of times) are being pressurised into bullying the under-stafflings who then get horribly stressed, under-perform and shrivel in a horrible work atmosphere.

That’s why I’m getting out.

OP – just clicked the link in your OP. If you carry your camera in that, inside a rucksack, you will take zero pics – it’s just too much hassle getting the camera out.

I used to use a holster type thing inside my backpack, but even that becomes a bit of a pain.

Just stick it in your bag and check your insurance is up to date 🙂

My D300 gets wrapped in a fleece or waterproof and stuffed in the rucksack, along with flash, jam sandwiches, tools, etc…

Had a fair few falls and it still seems to work OK!

sc-xc – Member
I would steer clear of plenty of fish. From what I’ve heard, the girls only seem to be interested in casual sex and one night stands.

Sudden influx of new members………..

As amy have been mentioned on that thread ^^^ the only issue with cheap canvases is that they will start sagging over time. All canvas prints will do this, but the pricier ones have wedges hammered into the back for re-stretching.

The really pricey ones have a wingnut type affair in each corner for the same purpose.

Hmm, not sure if teasing the local gay community will build confidence, but I won’t knock it ’til I’ve tried it 🙂

Go into a gay pub or club and people talk to you, just explain politely youre not gay if asked, but just called in for a drink

Erm what now?! That’s very strange advice IMO. As is chatting up the local butcher….

Do people just walk into a pub have a few drinks and talk to people?

Did a fair bit of this as a mature student in Edinburgh – all my classmates were about 17 and liked things like Slipknot and cheap cider 🙁

Have to say, walking into pubs and starting conversations with strangers doesn’t come naturally to me either – usually made a bee line for the pool table. That way you can be in the company of other blokes without ever actually having to talk…

Hmmm – stick with bikes maybe….

Group ride with some chaps off here?

Easiest way is to pour a small amount of lighter fluid over the area, set it on fire and wait for the stitches to melt away. Also cauterizes the wound, so double-value!

That’s nuts – I’d love to see that! There was a cooking-lager advert (Carlsberg?) a while ago with a great bit of footage of a sky black and alive with roosting starlings.

Cheap Glenmorangie sold out in Sunderland Morrisons – just been. Boo!

From Jimmy Carr the other night;

“Don’t tell me how to do my job – do I come to your work and knock the sailors’ cocks out of your mouth?!”

To answer the first q about selling, iDave has the answers. Social media is a necessary evil if you’re an unknown entering the market. Hype the work up.

I’d also recommend producing dinky little paintings, beautifully framed and finding a local cafe, bistro, deli type place willing to display them for a cut of the sale price (usually 50% of the sale tag). Have a theme for each exhibition so they hang together nicely – if the painting looks good on a cafe wall, customers will be able to envisage it hanging in their living room.

Some nice work above ^^

Hmmm. Hope I have a better day of it than the last time. On the day of Charles and Di’s wedding, I got bored, went down to the living room and spent a happy ten minutes trying to see if I could rock back on an armchair, the same way I did with my school chair.

I managed, but fell backwards, smashing through an 8’x4′ picture window, and then fell a further six feet into the garden. No spangles, quattro, or indeed Red Devil gobstoppers for me for a very long time 🙁

Surely all done with wires?! Blown away here! Boom, and indeed, gnarly.

Nick Cave pointed me out to his security after I spent an entire gig trying to ‘illegaly’ photograph him 🙁

Ever had a friend go off the rails? This is beautiful….

This may not be helpful, but…..

My mate’s dad knocked his pan in for a large Aberdeen based oil firm. Great money, loved his job but also had a massive love of sailing, hiking, biking and general outdoorsy stuff.

He was always frustrated by the lack of time he got to spend pursuing these hobbies and promised his wife that when they retired, he’d buy a yacht and sail them both all over the world.

True to his word, he retired, bought the yacht, spent a month planning the voyage, then keeled over and died.

True story – do it now!

I’m just back from the Cairngorms and asked some similar questions here.

Got some great advice – definitely worth a read through. Although my intentions were different (one day out and back up summits) a lot of the pointers would probably be useful to you too.

Having done a few of the smaller summits in the last week and a half, I can +1 on the point made above about snow crusts. One or two steps on top of the crust, then the next you plunge into thigh deep snow. It’s absolutely knackering and slows progress to a hot, bothered crawl.

’tis lovely when the sun’s out though!

Believe me – I’ve tried buying toothpaste to chicken fillets and had abuse from the c-o-o (see how quickly I picked that up?) for going to a normal checkout with less than 10 items.

Half the time, whatever it is you’ve swiped doesn’t register – you stick it in your bag and get the whole, “Unexpected item” routine.

You weren’t there man.

Aye – exactly that. But then we’d phone him back. And Diane would hand out the hobnobs for us to spit over our phones.

Self service tills are a bleedin’ nightmare. Especially if you are buying ‘sensitive’ items, such as nicotine patches, several bottles of beer / wine, anything reduced, a tiny paring knife, or indeed pretty much anything apart from bread.

By the time I get through with all my contraband, the poor b@st@rd on minimum wage, paid to oversee the filthy machines is usually sick of the sight of me and my shopping.

“Place the item in the bagging area”. “Remove the last item from the bagging area”. “Unexpected item in bagging area”. “Please wait for an operative”. “Please remove the note and re-insert”. “Please wait for an operative”. Ad nauseum.

Have a look at Photium off-the-shelf websites [/url].

Althought they’re designed for photographers, I’ve seen some great looking sites from other businesses. Dead easy to use interface which is constantly improving, built in shopping cart, the lot – and all for £7 odd a month.

Click my user name to see mine (desperately wants updating!) or have a look at my other bikey website which I put up ages ago and have hardly looked at…

+1 stumpyjon (probably). I’m still with specsavers for my eye tests as they seem to be as good as any. But when I used to get the full ‘service’ from them, I always felt, I don’t know, brushed off? Processed?

My eyes are my living and the best advice the opthamologist gave me was, “Stop wearing lenses and go back to specs”, which is fine if you’re not peering through a viewfinder for a living every other day.

And since using the daysoft lenses, the scales have literally dropped from my eyes……

Happy to spread the love! They are crazy cheap aren’t they? But then, you do have to balance it against paying for your eye tests if you don’t subscribe to a high street optician’s package…

Errr, I’d totally lay off the reserve if I were you (I do know whereof I speak). Reserves only serve to put your listing costs up and will deter bidders. Whatever you get for it is what it’s worth. If that makes sense – I mean, it’ll find its true value.

Also, as per my previous post, don’t forget to open it up to a worldwide market.

Our rescued lurcher used to be absolutely sh1t-scared and would cower with fear at every wee pop. Now though, he just likes to shout at the noise – reckons he’s nails like….

Been wondering the same so will watch this thread……..

In pic 2, is he pulling a poo out of it?

Despite the fess, ebay is still the best bet (IMO) for unusual, rare collectibles.

I sold my grandad’s Leicas four years ago – one in particular was worth £4500 just by dint of having black paint 😯 . There was also a goodly smattering of exotic lenses and accessories.

Far better to open it up to a worldwide market than limit yourself to a local camera fair. IIRC not one piece of my grandad’s collection went to a UK bidder. The Japanese and Americans go wild for this kind of thing….