Bolognese instead of tomato sauce.
Sauted grated courgette and garlic instead of tomato sauce.

Both lush.

All four of my bikes are still 26″, got loads of new and old tyres for them all and just bought one of the last batch of £144 Inbred frames from On-One. I’ll go for bigger wheels when I’ve got no other choice.

OMG it does work from Google Photos! No more faffing about with Flickr! Hoorah, nice one n0b0dy0ftheg0at.

Sounds like you’re sold on the idea so go for it. I’ve thought about going for a Golf GTE next time I change, in 18 months or so. Times are changing…

We picked up a Vax Air Lift cordless upright, in their factory sale. It was £80 instead of £250, because there was a small hole in the box. We weren’t expecting great things, just for it to be adequate, but it is surprisingly good. Ours came with two lithium ion batteries and you get about half an hour of hoovering on a charge. Worth looking out for, I’d say.

We named our daughter Lyra, four years ago.

Lyra is a constellation, Greek for harp, is the main character in my wife’s favourite book and is also the name of one of the rarer My Little Ponies!

Zena is my mother in law’s name. Her mum was called Aija, which is a lovely name.

Montezuma’s. End of thread.

Remember to try and get all the variables on the left of the = and the numbers on the right. I’m sure there’s probably a name for that process…

That was going to be a picture of my Charge Duster but I can no longer be bothered with trying to get a link that works, out of Flickr on my phone. 😆

I’ve got a 2 litre Ecoboost. It is splendid. 247 bhp and 254 ft lb of torque from 2 litres and averages 34 mpg with mixed driving. Pretty remarkable.

Back on-topic; I know people with the 1.0 litre Ecoboost, in Fiestas and they love them. Lots of MPG if you drive sensibly and plenty of grunt for such a small engine.

Sonos will work with NAS, as long as they support certain protocols: Sonos FAQ

Sounds like you need the same setup as I’ve got then: My Cloud with a My Book connected to it, My Cloud connected to router via Ethernet, Pi connected router via Ethernet. Rip from PC to My Cloud via Ethernet or Wi-Fi, play from My Cloud on Pi or anything else connected to your network. My Cloud is backed up (not mirrored) to the My Book every night.

I’m thinking of moving my My Cloud and My Book out into our detached garage, so that they’re out of the house, in case we have a fire or break-in. Anyone else done that?

I didn’t leave work (on Surrey Research Park) until 19:30 that evening. Some of my colleagues had been sat in their cars for an hour and a half, in the car parks, the jams were so bad. I just kept thinking and telling people we should feel sorry for the victim, driver and those who witnessed the accident and thankful we were all still OK, just stuck at work.

Sorry you had to witness that, OP. Take it easy and keep talking. Bet the lorry driver is in bits. 🙁

I’ve got a My Cloud with all of our music, films, photos and so on stored on it. I have a Pi running Kodi to play the music and films, which works really well. The photos we take on our phones are automatically uploaded to the My Cloud and our laptop is backed up constantly too.

The My Cloud has its own backup feature, called Safe Point. I’ve got a My Book connected to the My Cloud, via USB and every night the Safe Point updates, backing up the My Cloud. Not an ideal backup, as the My Book is right next to the My Cloud, not remote from it.

I got both the My Cloud and My Book from the WD outlet store, as recertified and have had no problems with them in three years or so.

whilst presenting a decent image that my company car allowance demands

Ha ha, when I first got my car allowance I thought long and hard about that, and bought a Focus ST 😀

I’ve got an unridden ’92 Specialized Stumpjumper in my garage.

DSC_1077 by Will Jenkins[/url], on Flickr

DSC_1081 by Will Jenkins[/url], on Fl

DSC_1086 by Will Jenkins[/url], on Flickr

Does anyone buy a car like an M140i and only drive 8k miles per year?

Get the one you really want, if you can afford it. Life’s too short to let your head rule your heart all the time.
Best thing I’ve done for ages is treat myself to a (slightly) silly car.

In the last 6 years I’ve used Nokian WRG2 winters, Vredestien Quatrac 3 and Hankook Optimo 4S all seasons and now Continental Wintercontact TS850P winters.

The Nokian winters were amazing, especially in the snow. The all season are a great compromise, for a low to moderately powered car, especially if you don’t have the room or the cash to have two sets of wheels and tyres that you can swap.

I almost want it to get colder and start snowing to test the Contis out properly. They’ve been great in the few dry and damp near-freezing days we’ve had so far.

DT 350 hubs are also excellent and can be had for reasonable prices from bikediscount.de. They have the same internals as 240s but slightly cheaper/heavier shells.

Little PSA: Laphroaig Select only £25 in Tesco, £16 off. Not tried it yet but will later :o)

The Blackstar pedals are very good. Personally I’d go for one of those, or another valve driven pedal. Ultimately a Mesa Boogie V-Twin but they are highly sought after and not cheap. I am a valve snob. Try as many as you can, with your own kit. Ask your local shop if they’ll do a try at home session with a few?

Didn’t see the Typhoon but we did see the Red Arrows twice over our house this morning. Our little girl was well impressed; “Red rarrows, red rarrows, Daddy, look!”

I’ve got a torque setting screwdriver that will to 4.5Nm, at work. There’s no reason this screw couldn’t be set with such a manual driver. If you’re setting to 4Nm, in aluminium, that’s about an M6 screw? If so you’ll need a PH3 screwdriver bit? Plus an analyser/meter to set the screwdriver with, which should be calibrated regularly.

There shouldn’t be much risk of a bit this big camming out at such a relatively low torque.

Make the head type one that doesn’t suffer from cam out; hex/hex socket/Torx? Must it be Phillips?

Yes you can. I use torque setting screwdrivers every day at work, on M1.6 upward, regardless of the head type. Most are Pozidrive but as above, it makes no difference, as long as you have the right bit for your driver.

Yes, tight like a tiger.

I’ve already freely admitted I was young and stupid. I racked up about £30000 of debt. It took ten years for me to pay off half of it, the compensation cleared the rest. I consider myself very lucky to have been given a get out of jail free card. Now I am exceptionally tight.

Seriously what were you taking put to pay 14k of ppi you didn’t know about?

I was young and stupid, using credit to buy nice bikes and things that I thought I could just pay for later. However, most of my compensation was interest. My loans were from a long time ago, 9 or 10 years of 8% PA, plus aggravated damages; having to consolidate debt into a new loan (arguably) because of having to pay for PPI payments.

I got £14k a few years ago after a colleague got £25k! Do not go through an agent. It’s easy to put a claim in directly to the creditor.

Get your nail in?

Sounds like a euphemism for a girth-challenged chap!

I’d say replace them if you’re in any doubt. New bars are a very cheap insurance policy for your wellbeing.

3rd SC Superlight. The only of my past bikes I truly miss.

50, the latest one. I looked at all the bottles on the shelf and there weren’t any older ones.

I’ve recently built a set of DT 350s. They have all the same internals as their more expensive hubs, just less expensive shells. They are very nice hubs. I’ve used Hope hubs for years but I’m converted by the near silent freewheeling. AFAIK they can be fitted with the more toothsome ratchets, for faster engagement. I got mine from bike-discount.de, for just £155 so cheaper than Hopes too.

Have a look at this thread.

Got out on mine this afternoon. Second ride on it since I finished building it and my fourth ride in the 21 months since the birth of our daughter, so nothing too extreme. Still fine tuning too. Need to reduce shock pressure a bit (only at 120 psi but only getting 2/3 travel) and add a click or two of rebound damping. Other than that very pleased.

DSC_0097 by Will Jenkins[/url], on Flickr

DSC_0099 by Will Jenkins[/url], on Flickr

DSC_0096 by Will Jenkins[/url], on Flickr

_20150517_163116 by Will Jenkins[/url], on Flickr

That’s what seven strings or long-scale six strings are for, isn’t it? I like detuning; one of my guitars is permanently set up 4 semitones down (C/F/A#/D#/G/C), with 12-54 strings (D’Addario EXL145s). A standard 6-string bridge or tremolo will probably not have enough saddle travel to set the intonation properly any lower than that. It is lovely to play and sounds pretty good but any lower than that and I’d get a guitar designed for lower tunings.

No riding for me today, feeling well rough. Went to the beach with my wife and daughter instead:

Splash splash by will jenkins[/url], on Flickr

I swear by Etymotic ER20’s, but the S version, that have smaller diameter baffles. Used them for years on and off stage, at work and other noisy places. I’m thinking of buying some of Etymotic’s earphones…

I’ve used Vredestein Quadrac 3 and Hankook Optimo 4S. The Quadracs were marginally better in the snow, the Optimos are better in the rain. We get more rain than snow so I’ll be getting Optimos again next time.

I too got Many Clouds in our work sweepstake. £50 in the bag from a £2 stake, not bad!